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COMPANIONS OF THE WAY. 

ENGLISH LITERATURE IN ACCOUNT 
WITH RELIGION. 

THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY. 

A Study of the Vital and Permanent Element 
in the Christian Religion. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK 



COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 



COMPANIONS OF 
THE WAY 

A Handbook of Religion 
for Beginners 

BY 
EDWARD MORTIMER CHAPMAN 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1918 



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C.A 



COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY EDWARD M. CHAPMAN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published February IQ18 



2-5^ 



FEB 25 1918 

©CI,A481828 









1 



TO 

E. N. C. AND L. T, C, 



PREFACE 

Some time ago a friend, who is also 
a distinguished member of Harvard 
University, asked me to suggest a 
constructive book upon Christianity, 
elementary enough to meet the need 
of the young man and woman of 
nineteen or twenty, possessing aver- 
age ability and education. The titles 
of several useful and inspiring books 
came at once to my mind. But one 
seemed to place undue emphasis upon 
questions which time has passed by, 
while another was something too dis- 
cursive and philosophical to meet the 
concrete need which he indicated. 
This little volume has grown out of 



vui PREFACE 

our conversation. I hope that it may 
help to show the Way; or, if not, that 
it may at least be a way-mark by 
which some wiser guide shall profit 

E. M. C. 

Westways, 

New London, Conn. 

1 8 December, 191 7. 



CONTENTS 

I. Introduction . . . • i 
11. Who is a Christian ? . .11 

III. Problems of the Way : 

1. Faith 45 

IV. Problems of the Way : 

2. Conduct . • • . 85 

V. Problems of the Way : 

3. "Making One's Soul" . 125 

VI. Brooks in the Way . .157 



COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

A HANDBOOK 
OF RELIGION FOR BEGINNERS 

I 

INTRODUCTION 

One of the wonders of the world is 
that young people still ask " What is 
it to be a Christian?" and "How can 
I be a Christian?" The religion of 
Jesus Christ has sometimes been per- 
secuted, sometimes questioned, and 
more often neglected. In the time of 
Diocletian, the Roman Emperor, to 
be a Christian put one in danger of 
the lions or of the stake. In Wesley's 
day at Oxford the Christian life that 
seemed to him vital and full of real 



2 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

meaning subjected him to ridicule. 
Toward the end of the last century, 
when a new scientific method was 
making its way among the people, 
many thought that at last Christianity 
was outgrown and would be forgot- 
ten. In the crash of the Great War 
of 1914, some men said that it had 
broken down. But in point of fact it 
has renewed its youth in every one 
of these periods. The martyrs of Dio- 
cletian's day bore a witness to the 
reality of faith that their world was 
forced to heed. The ridicule to which 
Wesley and his associates were sub- 
ject simply gave their earnestness and 
love of reality a better chance. A hun- 
dred years later new discoveries in sci- 
ence caused Religion to think again 
about some of its reasons, and to array 



INTRODUCTION 3 

its arguments in a different manner; 
but it finally gave more arguments 
than it took away, and to many be- 
lievers, forces that looked like enemies 
in the distance proved to be very good 
neighbors and sometimes quite con- 
genial friends when they drew nean 
The catastrophe of the Great War 
gave a new impulse to the spirit of 
Religion in many quarters and sup- 
plied such an object lesson of the 
worth and need of Christ's Law of 
Love as the world had scarcely seen 
before. 

This is a phenomenon; that is, 
something which we observe and must 
try to account for. It is very much 
more than a mere "happening." There 
is reality behind it and a deep human 
experience running through it. More- 



4 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

over, it is a living experience. It con- 
cerns the present as much as the past. 
It is your business and mine to do 
something about it just as much as it 
was the business of the Christians of 
the first century. 

If any one should ask how you 
know that Christianity is a living ex- 
perience instead of a mere dead tradi- 
tion, there are many answers ready, 
but the one which concerns us now is 
that it has a wonderful way of feeding 
upon circumstance and growing by it 
which belongs only to living things. 
Dead things decay under the influence 
of their surroundings, as the fallen tree 
drops into fragments and goes back 
to earth. Lifeless things, that is, things 
that never had and cannot have life, 
are apparently indifferent to their sur- 



INTRODUCTION 5 

Foundings, as the stone takes heat and 
cold, wet and dry without being per- 
ceptibly affected by them, although 
in reality slowly worn away. It is a 
sign of life to use the things within 
and without in the interests of more 
and better life. Some of these things 
are favorable and easily used. Others 
are hostile and must be tamed and 
managed to be of use. When I see a 
boat beating into a harbor against a 
strong offshore wind, I know it to be 
under control and with a living hand 
at its helm. Boats do not drift after 
that fashion. They have no means in 
themselves of getting on by help of 
a wind that is against them. Men have 
such means. For generations they 
have compelled unfavorable winds to 
serve them. The higher they are in 



6 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

the scale of life and intelligence the 
greater their power to endure, to cor- 
rect their own mistakes, and to tame 
hostile surroundings into service if not 
into friendliness. 

The Christian Religion shows just 
these marks of vitality. It has been 
persecuted again and again; yet it has 
endured. It has been neglected and 
treated with contempt; but it has 
never been forgotten, and has shown 
a remarkable power of revival. It has 
been corrupted, and evil has too often 
been done in its name; but reforma- 
tion has always succeeded to these pe- 
riods of moral sickness, and the forces 
of reformation have almost always 
come from within the Christian body 
or community;, — a very striking evi- 
dence of life. Furthermore, it would 



INTRODUCTION 7 

be hard to exaggerate the ability which 
Christian faith has shown to learn of 
its adversaries, to make gain of hard 
conditions, and to convert its seeming 
enemies into servants and even into 
friends. 

" But what," you may ask, " has all 
this to do with me?" The answer to 
that question is a further sign that 
Christianity is a vital faith instead of 
a dead tradition. As you have read the 
opening pages of this little book, you 
have almost certainly taken one of two 
attitudes toward its subject. You have 
felt the stirring of hope that perhaps 
the book might help you along the 
Christian Way; that it might answer 
some puzzling questions, solve some 
problem, or furnish guidance and in- 
spiration. Or you have felt a certain 



8 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

repulsion toward it because it deals 
with this very question of religion and 
may conceivably be right in maintain- 
ing the claim of religion. It is a claim, 
which, if it exist, you would perhaps 
rather not have pressed upon you. 
A multitude of subjects might be 
broached, the importance of which 
you would admit. Here, for instance, 
lying upon my table, is a book enti- 
tled "The Family.'' It is a very in- 
forming and valuable treatment of the 
history of the family relation. The 
theme is important. Many people 
would approach it with interest; but 
very few of these would feel any thrill 
of elation or of dread about the theme 
itself They would not think of sid- 
ing with or against the author except 
in some matter of judgment. We are 



INTRODUCTION 9 

generally content to take the problems 
of the family as we come to them or 
as they are thrust upon us. 

Religion does not hold thus aloof 
from us or permit us to keep apart 
from it. It will not let us alone. We 
can, of course, rule it out of our life ; 
but we know that we must guard the 
doors or it will come in again. Man 
is incurably religious; he is a "reli- 
gious animal," as a philosopher once 
remarked. There must be some way 
of satisfying this desire for religion on 
the one hand and of quieting the 
dread of it upon the other. The in- 
terest may, if unwisely fed, become 
fanaticism ; the distaste or dread may, 
if yielded to, lead to a kind of hard- 
ness of heart which must finally rob 
life of its highest satisfactions and 



lo COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

powers. Both of these issues are bad. 
We are meant to live with the great 
questions of our souls and to answer 
them after such a fashion that we shall 
become brave, competent, good, and 
contented. 

Jesus Christ opened 'such a way. 
He not only opened but followed it, 
making it plain and practicable to 
His friends. These in turn induced 
others to try it; until now, although 
still imperfectly known and kept, it 
has led so many people from evil into 
good and from restlessness into peace, 
that it is known the world around as 
the Way of Life. This volume is 
meant to be a handbook for that 
Way. 



II 

WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 

There are four steps up which we 
naturally climb to the full experience 
of a Christian. The first is Hearing. 
"He that hath ears to hear, let him 
hear," said Jesus repeatedly to those 
about Him. The words probably rep- 
resent a formula that public teachers 
were in the habit of using; yet to 
young readers of the Gospels they 
often seem almost absurd in their sim- 
plicity. I can still remember that as 
children we always inclined to smile at 
them. As we grow older, if we grow 
old in the right way, we should be- 
come simpler and more tolerant than 



12 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

we' were as children, and see beauty 
in things we once half-despised. So it 
is the experienced man who often sets 
truest value on these words of Jesus. 
They represent the first approach to 
Christ Some people never find Him 
because they never stop to hear. 
When the wonder of the stars above 
puts its question, they dismiss it 
lightly. When their hearts within cry 
out for the living God, they stifle the 
cry. And when He says, " Come unto 
me/' the words find them a little hos- 
tile, somewhat fearful, and a good deal 
indifferent. They do not attend. Now, 
it is the purpose of this book to take 
nothing for granted except certain 
great needs and experiences which we 
all recognize. I do not say that you 
ought to stop and hear Jesus Christ 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 13 

because He is the Saviour of the 
world. You may not yet know Him 
to be such a Saviour. But Religion is 
a great experience of life. For good 
or ill it has played a tremendous part 
in history and it is a vital concern of 
millions of people to-day. It is not a 
thing to be left on one side. No well- 
balanced life can afford to be indiffer- 
ent to it. The nurture of the soul, the 
problems of belief, worship, and the 
springs of conduct are a real and large 
concern of every man. The first step 
in settling the question of religion is 
to attend to it. And the moment we 
come to attend to the question of re- 
ligion we find the words of Jesus 
Christ in our ears; for no sane person 
is likely to deny that He is a high 
authority in this field* We may be for 



14 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

Him or against Him, but we cannot 
ignore Him. 

If, now, we listen, what is it that 
we hear ? It is a man of humble birth 
and calling who knows what men 
bear, long for, and rejoice in. He re- 
members men's bodies, for He feeds 
and heals them ; but He seems to care 
particularly for the deeper life of their 
hopes, fears, desires, and purposes. He 
finds people who feel that they have 
done wrong ; and tells them that there 
is a w^ay of forgiveness. Others are 
lost and lonely because the world of 
experience is so big and they are so 
small. He tells them that they have 
a Father in Heaven who marks their 
going out and coming in; Who is 
acquainted with all their ways ; Who 
loves them and counts them in His 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 15 

family. Then he finds among men a 
strange hunger and thirst after good- 
ness. He tells them that this is a sign 
of high destiny, that there is food and 
drink for such desires, and that if they 
will take His Way they shall finally 
be satisfied. He finds human life mis- 
erably marred by all kinds of ill-will, 
and He tells men most emphatically 
that they must live brotherly together; 
because only upon men of good-will 
can any blessing come that shall be 
worth having and keeping. This is 
what our ears hear when they are 
open to the voice of Jesus Christ. No 
one, I think, would deny that it is 
great news for the world, — something 
of first-rate importance, — if only it be 
true. 

The second step, then, which the 



x6 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

beginner is to take is that of Disciple- 
ship or Learning. We must not only 
hear the words of Jesus, but if we 
would treat our own need fairly we 
must study, observe, and learn how 
the word fits the world. What was 
the substance of Jesus' teaching ? Has 
anybody ever given it a fair trial in 
life ? How has it worked ? These are 
the questions which the fair-minded 
hearer who has some sense of the 
greatness of the news will ask and 
try to answer. In doing this, he will 
stand with the Disciples whom Jesus 
called about Him in order to instruct 
and train them ; and in so far as he is 
sympathetic and glad to believe the 
best that he conscientiously can, he is 
already a Christian in the sense in 
which they were Christians. 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 17 

He will then study the life as well 
as the words of Jesus as these are 
found in the Gospels. He will read 
the story of man's need and hope of 
just such good news as Jesus claimed 
to bring, as it is told in the Old Tes- 
tament. He will acquaint himself with 
the Acts of the Apostles, by which I 
mean not only the New Testament 
book of that name, but the Letters 
of St. Paul, and the lives of typical 
Christians since his day. He will es- 
pecially observe the aims and endeav- 
ors of men and women who, in his 
own acquaintance, seem to have 
much of the Spirit of Christ. And he 
will be fair with those portions of the 
Gospel which seem to rebuke him or 
make him uncomfortable. 

What may such a disciple be ex- 



1 8 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

pected to learn? The substance of 
the Gospel came to him in his first 
hearing of Christ's words. Now he 
should look again at it to see a little 
more in detail not only what Jesus 
taught, but how He taught, so that 
in his learning he may get the parts 
of the teaching into right proportion. 
The central principle in the per- 
sonal belief, the teaching and the life 
of Jesus Himself seemed to be Love ; 
by which He meant good-will in ac- 
Hon. He believed that God loved 
men not in a dim, far-away sense, but 
with a good-will that sought the best 
for them. He believed in His own 
divine good-will which led Him to 
serve His fellow-men even unto death. 
He believed in a Spirit of good-will 
which should always be in the world 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 19 

to bring in the Kingdom of God. 
Sometimes He spoke as though this 
would take a long time; and some- 
times He pictured the Kingdom as 
coming very suddenly; but soon or 
late it was to prevail and in it all 
truth was to be turned into goodness. 
There was room in this Kingdom for 
everybody who would come in. Wher- 
ever a good man tried to serve God 
and his fellows, there the seed of the 
Kingdom was growing. Wherever a 
bad man left his selfishness and un- 
cleanness and turned to Christ's Way, 
there the Kingdom spread over new 
ground. His own Spirit was always 
to be in the world. When men sinned 
they were soon or late to know it and 
to be unable to rest in sin. By de- 
grees, the ideas of righteousness were 



20 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

to establish themselves so firmly that 
they could not be ignored or forgot- 
ten. And every year that passed was 
to convince men more clearly that life 
finally means judgment. The real dif- 
ference between right ways and wrong 
ways — that is, between the ways of 
active good-will and those of ill-will 
or selfishness — shall finally appear 
so clearly as to be seen of all. 

To believe this and to act upon it 
was to be saved. Nothing could really 
harm the man of persistent good-will 
active toward God and man. He might 
be poor, but poverty could not belittle 
him. He might meet with all kinds of 
contradiction from men and things; 
through this divine Spirit he would 
prove to be conqueror and mysteriously 
more than conqueror. He must die, of 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 21 

course ; and he might die at the hands 
of the very people to whom his good- 
will went out and whom he was trying 
to help. Death, however, could not kill 
such a man's soul of goodness, and if 
death came, indeed, by the hands of 
those whom he wished to help, it then 
took on a special sacrificial power; 
with peculiar force and energy, this 
man's good-will lived on linked insep- 
arably to divine and immortal ends. 

Trusting thus to a Spirit of Truth 
and Love that should be always present 
for the help of the world, Jesus did not 
give to His Disciples any set of com- 
mandments, or a system of philoso- 
phy, or a form of worship. He left these 
things to the future. He seemed sub- 
limely indifferent to mere form, though 
He seems never to have despised the 



22 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

decencies of worship or of common life 
which had become sacred through use. 
This applied even to the form of His 
teaching, and the learner must remem- 
ber it, or he is likely to be puzzled and 
confused at the seeming contradictions 
of the Gospel. 

Jesus taught as an eminent teacher 
of His day and race might have been 
expected to teach, though with a star- 
tling and memorable authority. He did 
not follow lines of argument. He ut- 
tered precepts and parables, announced 
great principles of conduct, and left 
"sayings" for His friends to ponder. 
He used to approach a subject from 
one side, utter a saying about it, and 
then leave it as though He would never 
deal with it again ; but only to deal 
with it from another side in the same 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 23 

fashion on another day. The conse- 
quence is that His great principles of 
saving truth are perfectly consistent; 
while His sayings taken by themselves 
seem sometimes contradictory. You 
v^ill find some people always trying to 
explain these contradictions away. Do 
not let their painful and inconclusive 
efforts either convince or worry you. 
On the other hand, do not let anybody 
take one great saying of Jesus and use 
it as a club to drive you into some sect 
or party. 

For instance, Jesus said, '' Resist not 
evil." It is a great and memorable ut- 
terance ; but to find its right place in 
the scheme of the Christian's life it 
needs to be tested by the principle of 
love or good-will. Some people have 
tried to make it central in Christian 



24 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

teaching as though no wrongdoer 
should ever be restrained or punished. 
But the rule of Christian conduct is 
the Golden Rule of doing to others as 
we would have them do to us. And 
this plainly teaches not only that pro- 
tection should be given to the weak 
and defenseless, but that strong hands 
of restraint should be laid upon the 
evildoer, not in anger or at the dictate 
of vengeance, but because we, our- 
selves, in so far as we are men of good- 
will, would wish to be restrained before 
we could injure others. A good many 
young people are really afraid to study 
the words of Jesus Christ because well- 
meaning but short-sighted persons 
have so often used such words to cud- 
gel their neighbors into despising com- 
mon sense. You may dismiss this fear. 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 25 

There is a great deal of worldly wis- 
dom, at once selfish and "smart," 
which the Words of Jesus do refute 
and which the Christian must deny. 
But common sense — the result of 
man's experience of what is right or 
wrong through many ages of his works 
and days — is a sacred thing. It is, 
indeed, one fruit of the presence of 
Christ's Spirit — the Holy Ghost — 
in the world; and you need have no 
fear that Jesus Christ will deny the fruit 
of His own Spirit. He will call upon 
you to control and deny the baser self 
that would make you a mere creature 
of earth; and He will invite you to 
self-sacrifice — that, is, to the spending 
of self in the interests of the best things 
and the highest life ; but He will not 
summon you to the impossible task of 



26 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

crowding all your twentieth-century 
life into the forms of the first century, 
or of expanding it into a complete 
other-worldliness. He does not want 
to duplicate the life of St. Peter or 
to anticipate the life of an angel of 
Heaven in you. He wants you to be 
a man or woman of the present, doing 
to-day's work, but filled to the brim 
and running over with His Spirit of 
good-will trained and directed to the 
service of this generation and to the 
glory of Almighty God. 

Among other things that will greatly 
impress you in learning of Jesus Christ 
is the extent to which His doctrine 
carried Him. He believed so mightily 
in the Love of God and in good-will 
among men that He not only lived, 
but died to prove them. He made the 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 27 

supreme sacrifice, and the older you 
grow and the more you think, the more 
you are Hkely to see in that act. The 
old Hebrews had a theory that without 
shedding of blood there was no remis- 
sion of sin. Some people have cried 
out against such a theory as brutal. 
But among the Hebrews the blood 
represented the life; and thus inter- 
preted we see a truth for every age in 
their altar worship. Life that had gone 
wrong was only to be set right by the 
spending of life. Sad misuse has often 
been made of that principle ; but it is 
still so largely true that it will be in- 
creasingly impressed upon you as your 
own life goes on, if your experience be 
at all a deep one. Christ taught it by 
word of mouth and by an act which has 
probably influenced human thought 



28 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

and conduct more deeply than any 
other single act in the world's history. 
The third step in being a Christian 
consists in translating what has been 
heard and learned into action — in 
Doing. This is not only natural and in 
accord with common sense, but it is 
in especial accord with modern meth- 
ods. There was a time when wise men 
took most of their so-called " knowl- 
edge" and practically all their so-called 
"faith" on authority. They were told 
not only to believe, but what to be- 
lieve — and they believed. Some peo- 
ple are sorry that such a day has passed 
and would be glad to recall it. But it 
is : not likely to return, nor need the 
Christian waste any regrets upon it. 
Jesus Christ treats us as free men. He 
asks us to hear, examine, ponder, and 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 29 

do. The doing, He tells us in effect, 
will lead us into a belief in which 
we can rest with entire assurance and 
comfort. The scientific method, in use 
for the last two generations and which 
has proved to be of enormous value, 
has been just this method of observa- 
tion and experiment, or hearing, see- 
ing, studying, and doing; and the world 
of thought in the present generation 
has been greatly influenced by a theory 
of truth which makes it depend upon 
Its response to life. Now, I do not want 
you to think that the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ can be tested exactly as a chemi- 
cal formula or hypothesis can be tested 
in a laboratory ; or that the very clever 
theory of the nature of truth just re- 
ferred to is big enough to compass all 
the truth of religion. But I do want 



30 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

you to see that the Gospel does not 
come to you with a long list of prop- 
ositions which you must believe at 
your peril without any chance to see 
whether they fit your need and the 
facts of life. There is a sweet reason- 
ableness in the way in which Jesus 
Christ asks a learner to be also a doer 
of His will, assuring him that then he 
shall know the doctrine. 

It is here that the vital step is to be 
taken. One may open one's ears to the 
Word and even study the Way with a 
sort of detached interest and as a spec- 
tator; but Doing, especially the hearty 
and sympathetic doing that counts, re- 
quires an act of the will. Here a man 
commits himself; he decides that he 
will rise and follow as did the disciples 
of old time. It is a most reasonable 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 31 

thing to do. Of course his free will re- 
mains. If he chooses to forsake Jesus 
and His company, he can still do so ; 
but to understand what Jesus and His 
company with their journey along the 
Way really mean, a man must join 
them cordially and not as a mere de- 
tached critic. I am not now speaking 
of joining' the Church, but of a personal 
response to the summons of Christ like 
that which the early friends of Jesus 
made when they admitted His "Fol- 
low me " into their ears and His offer 
of friendship into their hearts. Though 
uninstructed yet and with the greater 
part of their experience still in the 
future, their wills worked as He asked 
them to work ; they did the next thing 
which He indicated, and at once their 
greater experience began. Peter moved 



32 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

out on the long way which was to 
change him from a man of impulse 
into a man of character, and Saul, the 
persecutor, took the turn in his road 
that was to make him a chief builder 
of the Church. 

Of course, when you make this 
choice you will find obstacles in the 
way. Once these might have taken the 
form of persecutions that would have 
put life and all its dearest possessions 
in danger. That day has passed, at 
least in Christian lands. Later still, you 
might have had to face ridicule and 
taunts well-nigh as hard to bear as 
blows. That, too, is an experience not 
very likely to be met by any reader 
of this book. Most thoughtful people 
speak well of the ideals and purposes 
of Christianity ; some, indeed, incline 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 33 

to patronize it. But you are pretty sure 
soon or late to meet some superior per- 
son who will smile at your discipleship 
as though all devotion of that sort were 
a little out of date — certainly out of 
fashion; and this maybe the very trial 
that your new faith needs. 

For instance, you may hear some 
one quote the smart saying that no- 
body knows yet whether Christianity 
IS true or not because it has never been 
tried. There is just enough resem- 
blance to truth in those words to keep 
them alive. They represent the atti- 
tude of the man who stands outside a 
great conflict and says clever things 
about the awkwardness of people who 
are in the midst of it. Do not let your 
own endeavor to do be discouraged by 
this. Do not let yourself be made re- 



34 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

sentful or bitter by it. Above all, do 
not be induced to imitate its cynicism. 
Smart though it seem, cynicism always 
rings false; the Christian with the grace 
and truth which came by Jesus Christ 
at his disposal can very well afford to 
be sneered at, and never has any need 
to sneer. You know, and the cynic 
knows, that Christianity has been tried. 
It has, to be sure, never completely 
developed, because it is a living, grow- 
ing thing, showing new opportunities 
and making new demands as we go on 
with our Doing. The Apostles tried 
it, although there was not a perfect 
man among them, and exemplified it 
v^ell enough to work untold blessing 
to their time. It was tried well enough 
to put a stop to the gladiatorial shows 
that were not only cruel in themselves. 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 35 

but taught the easy lessons of cruelty 
to whole communities. It was tried 
well enough to convert the bad Mid- 
dle Age custom of robbing and en- 
slaving the shipwrecked into the coast- 
guard system of the United States and 
Great Britain which keeps skillful men 
with valuable equipment alert to help 
the distressed and save their goods. 
It was tried well enough to become 
the moving principle in abolishing 
the slave trade and finally in getting 
rid of slavery itself Your cynical 
friend may say, " Oh, yes, you have 
abolished the slavery of buying and 
selling men's bodies; but you have 
introduced the wage-slavery that buys 
and sells their time, strength, and 
skill." Do not be baffled or confused by 
such a challenge. Just notice the beg- 



36 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

ging of the whole question in the use of 
that word " wage-slavery." You know 
that the man who sneers would not, him- 
self, hesitate a moment in his choice 
between slavery as it once existed and 
working for wages to-day even under 
highly unsatisfactory conditions, if 
such a choice were forced upon him. 
The active spirit of good-will toward 
all men — that is, the Holy Spirit 
proclaimed by Jesus — has wrought 
an enormous improvement in the con- 
ditions under which the world's work 
is done and in changing the slave sys- 
tem to the wage system. Christianity 
has been tried so far. But its Spirit 
will not let us rest here. The wage sys- 
tem is not good enough so long as it 
compels people to work habitually for 
too long hours, or for unfair pay, or in 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 37 

dangerous or unwholesome surround- 
ings. It urges us to do something fur- 
ther. It will not let us rest until the 
wage system be made right and fair, or, 
if that cannot be done, until it be su- 
perseded by something better in itself. 
In all the discussion of such things — 
and your generation will hear more and 
more of it — Christianity is being tried 
and responding to the trial. 

You know, too, that it has been 
tried and stood the test triumphantly 
in a multitude of individual lives. If 
you have had a normal experience, a 
whole group of people have touched 
your life whose touch was always true 
and wholesome. They were not only 
honest, but honorable ; not only serv- 
iceable, but they did their service 
with good-will; living in this world 



38 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

there was something more to them 
than this world could quite account 
for. " The power of an endless life '* 
showed in some measure in what they 
said and did. Imperfect people all of 
them, and some of them forced to 
struggle hard with evil tempers and be- 
setting sins, they left no doubt in your 
mind that they were Doers of Christ's 
Word and Companions of the Way. 
If you chose to pick out their faults 
you could make a long and sorry list; 
but you know perfectly well that the 
faults were not the characteristic thing. 
The "good-will doing service" was 
characteristic and really determined 
what they were. So the Gospel has 
been put to the proof of Doing by 
others and must be proved by you if 
you would be a Christian. 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 39 

Now comes a fourth step closely- 
related to the third. The Gospel of 
Good-Will needs hearers, students, 
and doers. It also needs Witnesses who 
shall extend the knowledge of it. As 
a Christian you should be willing to 
be one of these. 

When Jesus chose the Twelve He 
wanted friends and helpers as any one 
of us when face to face with a great 
enterprise might want them. These 
men heard, learned, and practiced the 
Gospel. But Jesus had a further use 
for their learning and doing. " Ye shall 
be my witnesses," He is reported to 
have said to them. Of course they 
had been witnessing to His goodness 
and their love of Him ever since they 
first joined His company. Now He 
desired them to become purposeful 



40 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

Witnesses who should make it a part 
of their life-work to go forth to tell 
men of the Way. In coming into the 
world the Good- Will of God em- 
barked upon a great Adventure — the 
saving of men from selfishness, and 
saving them to a life that should be 
worth living forever. Jesus Christ, 
Who is but another name for the 
Good- Will of God, came to save you. 
But that saving process is never quite 
adequate or complete until the saved 
man is enlisted in extending the proc- 
ess which has saved him. Professor 
Drummond used to say that " no man 
is ever saved in his sleep." An act of 
your will, which God and man must 
both respect as an ultimate force in 
the world, is required. And when 
your will is thus enlisted, it is expected 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 41 

to carry you far enough to make a sav- 
ing agency of you; you in turn are 
to become a partaker in Christ's Ad- 
venture. This is only fair. It is what 
the first disciples undertook when they 
became apostles and were sent out to 
spread the Good News. 

Of course, the moment that you 
began to hear, some testimony was 
borne to the worth of the Gospel. 
When you began to study and learn, 
the weight of this testimony increased. 
As you went on to do, translating 
gospel truth into everyday goodness, 
the testimony became clear and con- 
vincing in very high degree. There 
is no testimony more convincing in 
the long run than that of the Doer. 
But the world is so constituted that 
when great news is abroad — news 



42 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

that demands action — many people 
must be told by word of mouth. 
Even when convinced in their hearts 
that the news and its call are for 
them, they yet wait to be summoned 
to a decision. In every crisis in pub- 
lic affairs free men have to be dealt 
with face to face before their full serv- 
ice can be enlisted ; education, books, 
and libraries can never take the place 
of the living teacher; and in religion, 
Andrew must still tell Peter that he 
has found the satisfaction of his soul's 
desire in Christ, and Peter must tell 
the multitude that by the love and 
sacrifice of Jesus they are to interpret 
the Father's Good-Will to them. 

This is something that, looking 
ahead, you may shrink from doing. 
You have had no Christian experience 



WHO IS A CHRISTIAN? 43 

to boast about, you say. You cannot 
speak on street corners or address 
public meetings. Never fear. You 
will not be asked to do what you are 
not empowered to do ; although you 
may be asked to do some things 
which you cannot do very well or 
can only do with difficulty, since it 
is true that the witness whose testi- 
mony is given with effort is often 
surprisingly convincing. In speaking 
about the deepest things of life, do 
not covet glibness or strive after it. 
Covet conviction and unselfish desire 
to do good and your testimony will 
always carry weight. But remember 
that this bearing of testimony by one 
man to his neighbor and by some 
apostolic men to groups of their fel- 
lows is a necessary means of spread- 



44 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

ing a knowledge of the Way and 
leading people into it. Among all 
the themes that men discuss, none 
possesses a more lasting interest than 
Religion. He who can speak simply 
and with power of conviction upon 
it will never lack either a hearing or 
an influence. The true disciple will 
therefore feel an impulse to become 
an apostle. He will bear personal 
witness as best he can ; he will sup- 
port those agencies that help to in- 
struct congregations and communities 
in religion; and he will feel some- 
thing of the appeal made by the great 
adventure of Christian Missions. 



Ill 

PROBLEMS OF THE WAY 

1. FAITH 

There is an old story of a young 
man who had become a Christian and 
desired to become a communicant. 
On examination, he was asked what 
his experience had been; and an- 
swered that he expected to have his 
experience in the future. He was 
right, though his examiner was by no 
means wrong. Experience is a large 
word. The questioner wanted to know 
how the young man found the en- 
trance to the Way; the candidate 
had in mind the adventures and prob- 
lems of the Way itself I am suppos- 
ing that you have heard the invitation 



46 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

to the Christian Life, given some 
thought to its meaning, and decided 
that this Life is to be yours; that you 
are trying to translate its truth into 
action, and that you desire to spread 
the Good News. If you have gone 
so far, you are unquestionably a 
Christian. But you have not yet had 
your deeper experiences of how good 
the Christian Life is or how rich its 
rewards are. Large problems are yet 
to be solved; the largest relating to 
Belief and Conduct, or Faith and 
Morals. 

It may seem strange to some of 
you that the problems of Belief should 
be postponed to this third chapter in- 
stead of finding a place in the first. 
But the act of personal confidence 
u'hich leads you into the company of 



FAITH 47 

the Friends of Jesus Christ does not 
depend upon a system of belief; it 
depends rather upon your sense of 
sin or of need, and your feeling — in 
which conviction and hope are alike 
mingled — that Jesus Christ can meet 
it as He has met the need of others. 
But no sooner have you reached this 
point than you find that beliefs are 
necessarily involved. You find your 
friends believing thus and so; and 
instinctively compare their beliefs with 
your own. You find great Christian 
doctrines coming down through the 
ages. Some of these seem the most 
natural things in the world to you; 
they were, indeed, articles of your 
faith before you became a Christian. 
Others mean almost nothing to you; 
and when you are told that men have 



48 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

borne persecution and even gone to 
death for the sake of them, you can 
only wonder. Altogether, if you are 
a thoughtful person, the question of 
What to Believe will present many 
problems. What are you going to do 
about it ? 

In the first place, do not think that 
you must believe exactly as your 
Christian neighbor believes in order 
to walk in the Way as his true friend 
and helper. It was not a dead level, 
but a living variety of experience and 
faith that Jesus wanted or He would 
never have chosen twelve such differ- 
ent men for his Apostles. You will 
find some people inclined to deny 
this. A few within the Christian 
Church and many without it insist 
that every Christian's views must du- 



FAITH 49 

plicate those of his fellow or else one 
or the other is a pretender. These 
are the people who would also insist 
that a creed must always be an exact 
definition of religion, instead of an 
attempt to express one's experience 
of religion. Some of these people 
pride themselves upon their ortho- 
doxy and others upon their heterodoxy. 
Beware of both. Beware of anybody, 
indeed, who prides himself upon any- 
thing in the realm of Religion. The 
Way of Christ is for the humble- 
minded, and the boaster is never quite 
happy in it. You will not meet many 
to-day who boast of their orthodoxy; 
but the man who proclaims himself a 
*' liberal" is on every street corner. 
To be liberal and graciously tolerant 
is an exceedingly good thing; but to 



50 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

boast of the fact is, as a wise man re- 
marked the other day, like proclaim- 
ing one's good looks or fine manners, 
an act of such shockingly bad taste as 
to throw immediate doubt upon the 
rightfulness of the claim. So do not 
let anybody persuade you that you 
must exactly duplicate either the ex- 
perience or the faith of your neighbor 
in order to be a Christian yourself, 
or a member of the Church to which 
your neighbor belongs. Do not, on 
the other hand, multiply or exagger- 
ate these differences of experience and 
faith. Insist upon your freedom here, 
but use that freedom constructively 
and for ^strengthening the common 
cause. 

' Again, in facing the problems of 
belief, do not join the company of 



FAITH 51 

those who are always trying to boil 
faith down to its lowest terms — to 
find how little a man may believe and 
yet remain a Christian. The last two 
generations have shown a great many 
really earnest and conscientious peo- 
ple searching for an "irreducible min- 
imum*' of faith. In religion it has 
often seemed to be the rule to get rid 
of everything that was in any way 
open to criticism and to cling only to 
that with which nobody could find 
any fault or which had never been 
exaggerated or misused. There was a 
certain justification for this because of 
the exaggeration and misuse of many 
unimportant things. But the process 
went so far that these good people 
seemed like travelers who, on begin- 
ning a sea voyage, should eagerly 



52 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

search their stores to see what they 
could throw overboard and still main- 
tain life. One has scruples against tea 
and coiFee ; another never eats meat ; 
cocoa fails to agree with a third ; sugar 
is often misused; raisins are indigesti- 
ble ; fruit may decay and become poi- 
sonous; but life can unquestionably 
be supported for considerable periods 
upon bread and water. So overboard 
go the materials of a generous diet 
and all hands settle down to a quart 
of water and three ship's biscuits a day. 
This suffices to eke out an existence ; 
but it is pitiably meager, without zest, 
energy, or efficiency. 

The true Companion of the Way 
will spend very little time in whittling 
down his faith. He will be generous 
and hearty in desiring to learn and 



FAITH 53 

believe as much instead of as little as 
he can. Does this seem like inviting 
superstition ? It is really nothing of 
the kind. Curiously enough, it is the 
starved soul which often revolts against 
its regimen, and has recourse to wild 
superstitions, exactly as underfed bod- 
ies sometimes develop strange and 
unnatural appetites. 

The Christian of generous habit 
will not try exactly to measure his 
own beliefs by those of any other per- 
son. He will take thankfully such 
faith as springs out of the experience 
God sends. But he will be highly 
sympathetic toward all those beliefs 
of others which have proved their ca- 
pacity to mould and direct life. Even 
where this directing influence seems 
to him to have been unfortunate and 



54 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

to make for distortion rather than 
true development, he will still study 
it with sympathy enough to see if it 
does not show a real need in man and 
at least a kernel of the truth adapted 
to meet that need. So when it comes 
to the use of ancient creeds, you will 
not, if you are a Christian of the gen- 
erous type, think for a moment of 
throwing them overboard as so much 
useless lumber. There are well-mean- 
ing people who desire this, but they 
are usually people who need to think 
again. There also are people who 
would like to abolish the Constitution 
of the United States, the Senate, and 
the Supreme Court, because now and 
then one of these institutions seems 
to delay some pet reform of theirs. 
*' These things taste of the Past," they 



FAITH 55 

say, which to them is always a "dead 
Past" Their world is to get on to-day 
by a series of new little revolutions 
w^hich are to have no relation to the 
processes and orbit of yesterday. But 
the world is not so made. It gets on 
by revolutions, to be sure, but these 
are part and parcel of the revolutions 
of yesterday. The Past, rightly con- 
sidered, is living instead of dead, and 
the work of to-day and to-morrow 
cannot be adequately done without 
some knowledge of its experience. I 
am dwelling a little upon this because 
it is a rather unpopular truth, and one 
which, if you would have a healthful 
and really constructive life, it is highly 
important to consider. '^ Trees grow 
best in soil fertilized by their own 
leaves," runs the proverb. The better 



56 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

faith of to-morrow will come not from 
despising, but from developing the 
faith of yesterday and to-day. 

The great Creeds bind the living 
Past and the struggling Present to- 
gether. They are sacred because they 
record the deeper needs and aspira- 
tions of an earlier day ; and when we 
treat them as they ought to be treated, 
— not as definitions, but as symbols 
or attempts to express experience, — 
we discover that they represent very 
vital links in the processes of a living 
faith. 

What, now, are the main articles 
of faith which the Church catholic — 
that is, the general and inclusive body 
of Christian people — has confessed? 
In answering that question I shall cite 
the Confession of Faith in a New Eng- 



FAITH 57 

land Church which cherished the faith 
of the fathers and yet wished to ex- 
press it in terms of to-day's experience 
so simply stated that an intelligent 
child under proper instruction could 
understand them: — 

We believe in one God, the Father 
Almighty, Creator and Ruler of all things : 

And in Jesus Christ, in Whom the love 
of God was so revealed that whosoever 
believeth in Him shall not perish, but have 
everlasting life : 

And in the Holy Ghost, as the Indwell- 
ing Spirit of Truth : 

And in the Forgiveness of Sin, through 
Repentance and Faith : 

And in the Holy Scriptures, as revealing 
the Way of Eternal Life : 

And in one Church of the Redeemed on 
earth and in heaven ; and in one Baptism 
for the remission of sins ; and in one Com- 
munion of Saints : 



58 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

And we look for the Resurrection of the 
Dead, and the Life Everlasting. 

Amen. 

The phrase which introduces these 
articles of belief is, you see, ''We 
believe in," instead of, " We believe 
that," and the difference is much more 
than a mere play on words. Religion 
takes only a secondary account of the 
things which we believe as mere his- 
toric facts or philosophic theories, 
though these are often important ; but 
it takes immediate account of the per- 
sons and things which we believe in 
for the guidance of life. I shall illus- 
trate this further as we go on. 

It would be quite absurd, for in- 
stance, to attempt to define God — 
that is, to say all that can be said 
about an Infinite Person ; or to write 



FAITH 59 

such a description of Him as would 
cause Him to be known perfectly by 
another. We cannot define a man or 
a child in any such way as this. There 
IS something about a person that re- 
fuses to be crowded into definitions. 
But we can put down in black and 
white at least a portion of our expe- 
rience of persons — our need of them, 
our affection for them, and the sort of 
persons we have found them to be. 

So in the present case. Where 
does your experience of God begin ? 
If you believe in God at all, what as- 
pect or manifestation of God do you 
believe in? In all probability your 
faith in God begins with a belief in 
the Holy Ghost, the Indwelling Spirit 
of Truth. You may very likely dis- 
sent strongly from this statement. You 



6o COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

arc much more certain of your belief 
in a Heavenly Father and in Jesus 
Christ than in the Holy Spirit. In- 
deed, this article of the Church's faith 
has very likely seemed quite dim and 
mysterious to you. But think again. 
Is it not true that among your deep- 
est experiences are those which have 
to do with truth and falsehood, right 
and wrong? The moral law within, 
although you have never thought 
much about it, is a great reality as well 
as a great mystery. It is really there, 
and as you began your conscious life, 
a something that said "ought" and 
*Vought not,'* "right" and "wrong," 
began to be your companion. In so 
far as you have had this experience 
you have tested for yourself the pres- 
ence of a Spirit of Truth in the world. 



FAITH 6 1 

Wise men will tell you that these 
feelings about right and wrong are 
echoes of the experience of your 
grandparents and great-grandparents ; 
and there is weight in what they say. 
But it still remains true that the im- 
pulse which men and women have to- 
ward truth and right is of the nature 
ofa personal influence. We believe in 
this impulse. We know it is here to- 
day; that it will be here to-morrow 
stronger than ever before; that men 
in general cannot shake it off; and 
that the way to peace lies in accept- 
ing its guidance and authority. Re- 
member that in expressing our faith 
here wt are not trying to define all 
that this Spirit of Truth may be. We 
are simply acknowledging our expe- 
rience of right and wrong and our be- 



62 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

lief in and purpose to trust the Spirit 
of Truth. , 

But as we go about among believ- 
ing people, and as we look back upon 
the experience of the race, we hear 
and see much that relates to Jesus 
Christ. We read His words and some 
episodes of His life in the New Tes- 
tament. We discover that He had 
an extraordinary sense of the nearness 
and intimacy of this Spirit of Good- 
ness and Truth of which we have just 
been speaking. He had a unique sense 
of His own oneness with God ; so that 
He thought and spoke of God as His 
Father and as a God of Love. 

From Jesus the men about Him 
caught this idea of God as their Fa- 
ther, a God of love and righteousness, 
until they began to form their lives 



FAITH 63 

upon that idea. They began, that is, 
to translate its truth into goodness. 
Men had believed in God before; 
but it was in a tribal or a national god 
or in a galaxy of gods. Now, looking 
through the eyes of Christ, they be- 
gan to see that the true object of their 
faith was a Universal Father and that 
His name is Love. 

In this sense we believe in Jesus 
Christ as revealing God to us. But, 
beyond this, we are forced to note the 
way in which He dealt with sin. Some 
people have tried to get rid of sin by 
ignoring it. Jesus, on the contrary, 
recognized it to be one of the most 
outstanding facts of life. Others, who 
have admitted its great place in expe- 
rience, have been so hopeless about it 
as to become hard and cynical. "It 



64 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

might as well be admitted," said a 
brilliant writer of the last century, 
" that there is no cure for a bad heart." 
Jesus again made it the burden of His 
preaching and living that there was a 
cure for a bad heart; and He died to 
effect that cure. Just now we are not 
concerned with "a scheme of salva- 
tion" and shall not discuss questions 
relating to it. I only observe that your 
belief in Jesus Christ does not depend 
upon a philosophy of His person or 
work, but upon a fact of experience. 
That fact is that Jesus Christ's method 
of dealing with sin appears to work. 
Sin is a fact of life which wise men 
will recognize. It seems to come from 
a heart that is under the dominion of 
a wrong choice, or from an unchas- 
tened physical desire, or a pervading 



FAITH 65 

selfishness, or from all three, since they 
bften merge into one another. He said 
that when by a great choice of the 
right a person turned from evil, the 
dominion of evil could be broken and 
he become a free man again. If a man 
were sorry for the wrong of the past, 
repaired so far as he could the evil he 
had done, and became a man of active 
good-will, then he should become a 
good man, his sins should be forgiven, 
and he should find peace instead of 
unrest; in short, he should be saved. 
This has proved to be true in expe- 
rience. 

St. Peter was a rather rough friend 
of Jesus who, when his loyalty was 
tested, failed to meet the test. He 
denied his friend from fear and confu- 
sion. It was wrong, and the wrong 



66 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

was brought home to him by the look 
of his Master. But there proved to be 
a way out of his disloyalty. He was 
sorry ; he took the experience to hearty 
as we say ; and the result was that the 
generous but over-confident nature of 
the man was chastened and sweetened 
into serviceableness. He was restored 
and made efBcient. John Bunyan was 
a youth of unusual sensibility to re- 
ligious and anti-religious influence. It 
is not necessary to take his own state- 
ment of his sinfulness too literally, 
sincere though he was in making it. 
The thing that is abundantly clear is 
that he was lost in the sense of not 
having any clear and practicable way 
of life to follow, or any peace to en- 
joy. Then he tried the Way of trust- 
ing and following Jesus Christ as well 



FAITH 67 

as he could discern it. The result was 
unmistakable. He found forgiveness, 
direction, peace, and adequacy to very 
hard conditions of life — that is, in- 
stead of being lost in the v^orld, he 
was saved. Moreover, he developed 
a marvelous efficiency in helping other 
people. He became not only a world- 
famous Pilgrim, but a Great-Heart 
who guided other pilgrims through. 

A notable example of the success 
of the method of Jesus Christ is often 
cited in the case of a certain Jerry 
Macaulay, who, having been "saved" 
from the tyranny of drink and other 
vices, became a recognized power in 
saving men who had sunk so low as 
to abandon hope. They repented, en- 
listed among the friends of Jesus 
Christ, found peace in that friendship. 



68 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

and walked in the Way. There is no 
denying the fact. The method of 
Jesus "worked" in these notable 
cases, as it has done in a multitude 
of less-known lives. It always seems 
to work when it is fairly tried. And 
when the Church confesses its faith 
" in Jesus Christ through Whom the 
love of God was so revealed that who- 
soever believeth in Him shall not 
perish but have everlasting life," it 
means just this : that Christians trust 
Christ's way of dealing with sin. If 
you believe that repentance, forgive- 
ness, faith, and active good-will will 
save men from sin, then you believe 
in Jesus Christ as a Saviour, since 
that is His Way; and you still be- 
lieve in Him, even though your phil- 
osophical theories about Him and 



FAITH 69 

some of your historical estimates of 
the story of His earthly life may dif- 
fer from the theories and estimates of 
your fellows. 

You will see how naturally this 
experience of a Spirit of Truth and 
Goodness and of a Saviour from sin 
leads us up to trust in a God Who 
loves men. The Christian's idea of 
God is won from Jesus Christ. Do 
not be in the least disturbed when 
people say that this idea of God as a 
Father was in the world before New 
Testament times. Of course it was. 
God has ever been true to Himself 
and His children have always been 
catching glimpses of His nature. 
Cloudy as the so-called heathen and 
pagan faiths were, there were rifts in 
their skies through which the light of 



JO COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

life shone. It is also true that many 
of the great rules of Christian living 
were suggested before Jesus gave them 
their present shape, and for the same 
reason. The early Chinese saying, "Do 
not to another what you would not 
have him do to you" is like a fore- 
taste of the Golden Rule, except — 
and this is noteworthy — that it is 
negative and cautious whereas the 
great command of Jesus is positive 
and adventurous. It was in Christian- 
ity that this idea of God as a living 
and saving Father became regnant. 

In becoming a Christian you are 
not asked to accept a philosophy or a 
set of definitions, but a Way of Life. 
Jesus Christ asks you to live as though 
there were a Father in Heaven to care 
for you, a Saviour to reveal that Fa- 



FAITH 71 

ther's love, and a Spirit of Goodness 
and Truth to keep life sweet and 
whole. He says that whoever makes 
this adventure or experiment of life 
shall find out for himself whether the 
doctrine is true. This is an approach 
to the Christian life which any rea- 
sonable man may make. It is fair and 
friendly. It involves no self-contra- 
diction, and no disgrace of the reason, 
nor does it ask a man to believe what 
he cannot believe. It does ask for an 
act of the will, a choice which shall 
align a man with those who through 
the generations have been striving for 
wholeness of life, abiding peace, and 
the reign of righteousness. 

The remaining clauses in our Con- 
fession may be more briefly dealt with 
because their essence is contained in 



72 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

those already discussed. We believe 
that repentance and faith with all that 
they imply will heal a soul of sin — 
not merely by drowning uncomfort- 
able memories, but by establishing a 
new basis of living and by cleansing 
the springs of action. 

We believe in the Bible, and we 
refuse to be drawn into unprofitable 
argument as to just what parts are 
played in it by history, annals, para- 
ble, poetry, or legend. All may be 
serviceable. The thing about the Bible 
that interests us is that it reveals the 
Way. One man may think the Book 
of Jonah to be a history and his neigh- 
bor may regard it as a very appealing 
and beautiful apologue which is like 
a foregleam of the New Testament 
shining out of the midst of the Old. 



FAITH 73 

If these are wise men their discussion 
of the problem may be both interest- 
ing and profitable ; but it is not likely 
to touch the real worth of the Bible to 
you and me. Our question is whether 
or not the Bible points out a practi- 
cable and hopeful way of life. The 
Old Testament may be said to hinge 
upon the Ten Commandments and 
the faith of the Prophets; the New 
Testament upon the Law of Love as 
proclaimed in the life, death, and words 
of Jesus Christ. We are sure that 
every man who guides his faith and 
conduct upon these lines will develop 
a life fit to outlast death. We are sure 
that abiding worth lies in that direc- 
tion. So whatever may be your views 
about the authorship of Bible books 
or the nature of Biblical inspiration, 



74 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

you may be sure that if you accept 
the Way as marked out in Scripture, 
you have in your possession the 
really vital thing. 

In like manner we believe in one 
Church made up of believing and 
trusting people who follow the Way. 
They are called by many names, — 
altogether too many names, — but the 
Master of the Way is patient and He 
does not deny His followers because 
they too often insist upon special 
names and signs. It is better to be 
imperfectly and awkwardly organized 
than not to be organized at all. Our 
Confession of Faith recognizes and 
emphasizes this need of organization. 
It is useless in this day when effi- 
ciency and cooperation are so empha- 
sized to labor the point. Christian 



FAITH 75 

people need one another for common 
worship and for common effort. They 
are Christians not simply to save their 
own souls, but also for the sake of 
the Kingdom and Community of 
God. They are asked to confess their 
faith — to stand up and be counted 
upon faith's side in the great exigen- 
cies of life; and they are asked to co- 
operate for the ends of the Kingdom. 
This means the formation of a visible 
Church. 

It is unavoidable, men being what 
they are, that some forms should per- 
tain to the organization and worship 
of the Church. Two Sacraments have 
come down through the ages, both in 
themselves of high significance and 
great simplicity. One is Baptism 
which takes the common cleansing 



76 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

use of water to signify our washing 
from sin through repentance and faith ; 
the other is the Lord's Supper which 
figures forth our belonging together. 
Both may be said to signify our union 
with Christ, one upon the negative 
and the other upon the positive side. 
In Baptism we separate ourselves 
with Him from defilement, and in the 
Lord's Supper we sit down with His 
family and are fed upon His Grace, 
Some are no doubt repelled by the 
Sacraments, partly by a distaste for 
all symbols or forms, and partly be- 
cause they fail to see the inner mean- 
ing of them and to realize what 
means of grace they have proved to 
be. Enlightened Christians do not 
treat them as watchwords or counter- 
signs which a believer must use or 



FAITH 77 

else utterly forfeit the divine favor. 
God is not that kind of a taskmaster. 
On the other hand, the Church recog- 
nizes the part played by symbols in 
all human intercourse. Our ordinary 
civilities of bov^ing, shaking hands, 
uncovering when we enter a house or 
church are all symbolic. So are our 
marriage ceremonies, our oaths of al- 
legiance, and our flags. The great 
symbols are made up of simple ele- 
ments, and it is a part of common 
courtesy, to say no more, to respect 
these. None are simpler or more uni- 
versal than the use of water to signify 
cleansing, and the breaking bread to- 
gether as members of one Family 
on Earth and in Heaven, for whose 
sustenance provision has been made 
through the spending of flesh and 



78 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

blood by its Head. There are some 
sacrifices which a man should stand 
ready to make for the common cause. 
If you shrink from all use of form 
and symbol, consider whether you are 
not called upon here by common 
courtesy toward God and your fel- 
low-Christians to use these accepted 
symbols of the Church's unity. On 
the other hand, if you delight in sym- 
bols, beware how you elaborate the 
form of these Sacraments or speak of 
them as though they were ends in 
themselves. They are means of grace, 
not ends. And many who have used 
them reverently have found them to 
be means of such power that the sense 
of the merely symbolic has been lost 
in a conscious union with the divine. 
Do not strain or hurry toward such a 



FAITH 79 

consummation. Just follow the Way, 
putting the means which the Way 
offers to their best use and larger 
experience will come. 

The final article in our Confession 
of Faith relates to a future life. With 
a perversity as baffling as it is human 
good people have insisted upon em- 
phasizing the incidental and neglect- 
ing the essential here. Men who were 
Christians and others who were not 
have tried to define the Christian's 
belief in life after death as though it 
were made up of a great many dog- 
matic assertions about Heaven, Hell, 
Purgatory, and the circumstances of 
the soul's existence after it has left the 
body. The fact is that the Bible is 
not specific in regard to these things. 
It is not the province of the Bible to 



8o COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

answer our curious questions, even 
when they are dictated by the heart. 
Jesus said relatively little about life in 
a future Heaven or Hell, though He 
seems to have thought and said much 
about a future life upon the earth un- 
der conditions which would make the 
earth a true Kingdom of God. It is 
a mistake to make Christianity a re- 
ligion of other-worldliness as though 
it taught that all a man need care for 
was the plucking of his own soul like 
a brand from the burning. Some peo- 
ple here and there may have so re- 
garded it. There have been periods 
in Christian history when interest in 
the future tended to distract men 
from duty in the present. But the nor- 
mal appeal of Christianity has been 
to men who were on pilgrimage out 



FAITH 8 1 

of the Past into the Future with the 
Present ever with them. It has been 
a generous appeal, and it has been 
made in the expectation that a fair 
and generous interpretation should be 
put upon its terms. 

This is particularly true of the doc- 
trine of the Future Life. Christian- 
ity here as elsewhere is a Way. In 
becoming a Christian you are asked 
to live on the principle that life is 
stronger than death; that there is 
something in a good life which bodily 
decay cannot reach, which shall sur- 
vive separation from the body, and 
which shall be worthy to be clothed 
upon with some new organ of self- 
expression, that shall do for it to-mor- 
row after death what the physical 
frame does to-day. 



82 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

There are many reasons for this 
faith. In some form or other, gro- 
tesque or beautiful, it is almost uni- 
versal among men. It seems necessary 
to life unless we are to be put to seri- 
ous mental and moral confusion. It 
suits the genius of creative and ad- 
venturous man that he should finally 
attain what his life needs. In partic- 
ular the life of Jesus Christ illustrated 
this faith. He had a splendid ideal 
of saved men in a saved world. He 
was defeated again and again in his 
attempt to make men see and accept 
it. At last He met a cruel and shame- 
ful death while pushing this attempt. 
His enemies thought Him disposed 
of His friends were of the same 
opinion. Their hopes, plans, and in- 
cipient organization were all in ruins. 



FAITH S^ 

Then somehow they became con- 
vinced that their Master had not been 
conquered by death after all. They 
were conscious of His living presence 
with them. As they reflected upon 
it they began to feel that a life so hid 
with God, the source of all life, could 
not die. In a world where many men 
were bafiled and confused by death, 
they got their bearings, steered a brave 
and progressive course, and fulfilled 
the earthly portion of their careers by 
means of this faith. Men have been 
doing that ever since. It has not 
made them weak or ineffective. They 
have been strengthened and made 
more efficient in so far as they have 
thought of themselves as responsible 
agents, set here to write in character 
and action one chapter of their ca« 



84 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

reers, to take good fortune and ill not 
merely with composure, but with gal- 
lant determination to make use of 
both, and to face death as a summons 
to a new field of service and adven- 
ture. 

Such are the main articles of the 
Christian's faith. Their truth cannot 
be proved by sheer force of logic as 
a theorem in geometry is proved. Its 
appeal is to life. It opens a Way of 
Salvation — that is, of Mastery over 
Circumstance. If you have faith and 
courage enough to choose this Way 
for your own and to declare your 
choice by word and life, you are a 
Christian. 



IV 

PROBLEMS OF THE WAY 
2. CONDUCT 

The last chapter dealt with the faith 
of the Christian, not as a set of dog- 
mas, but as a principle of life. Faith 
feeds conduct and conduct strengthens 
faith. To say which comes first is like 
asking whether the seed is due to the 
plant or whether the plant is due to 
the seed. In practical experience we 
find both to be true. We find some 
plants offering their fruits to us. Here 
the plant comes first. On the other 
hand, because we love growing things 
for their own sakes or because we 
feel some obligation to other people, 
we put good seed into the earth and 



86 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

see plants of our sowing grow from 
them. It is a cycle of experience as 
beautiful as it is endless. So some men 
are won to faith by seeing its good 
fruit in other lives; and others, feeling 
the need of faith to lighten their way 
and make life whole, claim it, and the 
good fruits follow as naturally as the 
woods grow green in May or the gar- 
den ripens in August. It is vain to dis- 
cuss the precise order of this progress. 
God seems to like wealth and variety 
of experience and permits His children 
to begin their vital acquaintance with 
Him at various points in the cycle. 
But if the acquaintance be real, the 
cycle will repeat itself. " Faith without 
works is dead," said the New Testa- 
ment writer. Your belief is worth just 
so much as the wholeness of life it 



CONDUCT 87 

produces. Faith is a claim which the 
soul makes upon truth. But it is not a 
lifeless grasp ; it is a vital connection. 
True faith is a grasp of truth in order 
to do something with it ; and the thing 
that the human soul can do with truth 
is to turn it into goodness. Not all 
people know truth when they see it 
or have any appetite for it when it is 
known. Truth which has not passed 
through the laboratory of a human life 
is in some respects like "raw" nitro- 
gen in the air. Tons of atmospheric 
nitrogen rest upon every acre of many 
a barren field whose chief need is nitro- 
gen. Yet the field, though it has need 
of this food, has no capacity to receive 
it. Let certain plants be sown there, 
however, which have the happy gift of 
absorbing nitrogen and concentrating 



88 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

it in a form adapted to the soil's di- 
gestion, and the field improves. With- 
out any taste for raw nitrogen, even 
when in closest contact with it, the lean 
earth understands and profits eagerly 
by the form which nitrogen takes when 
wrought over into the substance of 
crimson clover. 

So there are many people who care 
little about the law of gravitation as a 
statement of general truth. They care 
almost nothing about the fact that six- 
teen ounces make a pound. But when 
some man, using the law of gravitation, 
makes a just scale and sells them goods 
by means of it, carefully and as a mat- 
ter of conscience giving them a full 
sixteen ounces to every pound, then 
the truth becomes vital. Every normal 
man understands it, has an appetite for 



CONDUCT 89 

it, and calls such behavior, goodness. 
He is at once more inclined to truth 
which is capable of such transforma- 
tion, and to the human soul by whom 
the transformation is effected. 

Such a translation of divine truth 
into goodness was the mission of Jesus 
Christ. Men had caught glimpses of 
the fact that they had a Father in 
Heaven who loved them. In the life 
and death of Jesus they saw this good- 
will of God translated into the service 
of men. Christianity is a continuation 
of that Way. The Christian man is 
expected to carry on the work of Jesus, 
not by trying to do exactly what Jesus 
did in the first century, but, as has 
already been indicated, by taking the 
spirit and endeavor of Jesus into his 
life in the present, and turning the 



90 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

truth of to-day into twentieth-century 
goodness. 

How is this to be done ? By apply- 
ing the principle of good-will to the 
roots and springs of action. There is 
a morality of form, an outward deco- 
rum, which is on the whole a valuable 
asset of society. It is disgraceful to 
pick a man's pocket. It is mannerly 
and amiable to go out of one's way to 
show an inquiring traveler his road. 
These are things that a person will 
avoid or do, in proportion as he has 
been well trained in the customs of so- 
ciety ; and the customs of society in 
these respects are good. To deride 
them is a cheap and easy way of gain- 
ing notoriety ; but it usually indicates 
a mind that is not only shallow, but 
narrowas well. Custom, however, even 



CONDUCT 91 

when it is good custom, does not sat- 
isfy the demands of the Way. The 
goodness of the Christian is an inter- 
pretation of the divine good-will. A 
man may refrain from stealing because 
the chance of detection and punish- 
ment is too great. This is good as far 
as it goes; but it clearly does not go 
very far in the direction of society's 
safety, and it does not promise any 
advance at all toward society's re- 
demption. It is the morality of fear. 
Another man may refrain from steal- 
ing because to pick a pocket would 
outrage his own self-respect. In the 
popular (and mistaken) use of the 
word he would not so " demean " him- 
self as to do such a thing. This atti- 
tude represents an advance upon its 
predecessor because here honesty has 



92 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

become a vital thing so far as the feel- 
ing of self-respect is real, although its 
life may be a rather feeble one rooted 
in thin soil. The third man, with an- 
other's pocket wide open before him 
and feeling himself to be beyond 
chance of detection, will not steal be- 
cause he considers his neighbor. He 
can see the man's chagrin, perhaps 
his anxiety deepening into pain, upon 
realizing the loss with his consequent 
inability to pay his bills or purchase 
needed supplies. Because money is the 
symbol of real value, there is no sen- 
timentality in the pathos attaching to 
a poor man's desolation upon losing 
it. One who loves his fellow-men in a 
Christian way cannot do anything that 
would inflict such sorrow upon them 
or so outrage their plain rights. Even 



CONDUCT 93 

supposing that the loss would never 
be discovered by the owner, this same 
principle constitutes a man his broth- 
er's keeper, and if a neighbor's posses- 
sions are observed to be in danger, 
he at once becomes their guardian ; he 
restores them to their owner, and he 
neither accepts nor desires anything 
beyond such a moderate and just re- 
ward as shall compensate his time and 
effort. Here the element of true self- 
respect comes in. He is a brother in 
Christ's family, and it behooves him to 
behave brotherly. Perhaps the great 
phrase, "God created man in his own 
image," runs through his head, and he 
realizes as never before that he must 
not let that fair reflection of the divine 
be marred or defaced by his behavior. 
This man sums up in himself the 



94 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

three motives for honest conduct. He 
has ordinary prudence ; but this fear 
of detection if he steal or cheat is a 
reserve which is never called up be- 
cause it is not needed. He has self- 
respect, but knows that the truer self- 
respect is, the less likely its possessor 
is to push it to the front as though 
he were proud of its possession. The 
thing that really weighs with him and 
carries the day without recourse to 
lesser motives is his love of God and 
fellow-man. He thus becomes a man 
not merely of literal honesty, but of 
instinctive honor. His conduct has 
a universal significance and can be 
taken over as a rule for the world's 
life. His spirit is such that, whatever 
the circumstances, he will prove a 
translator of truth into goodness. This 



CONDUCT 95 

is the type of character which Christ's 
Way develops; and it is the sort of 
conduct by which His Kingdom 
grows. It is the outcome of the Mind 
of Christ. 

You will see how close is the ap- 
plication of this Spirit of the Way to 
the guidance of life. Here, for in- 
stance, is the field of conduct upon 
which the sexes meet. How shall one 
behave there ? The Mosaic Law estab- 
lished many concrete rules in regard 
to the behavior of men toward women. 
These rules were in general so admir- 
able as to lift Hebrew conduct to a 
plane very much higher than that of 
the surrounding nations and to give 
to Israel a correspondingly secure hold 
upon life ; for it is true of nations as 
of individuals that the ways of impu- 



96 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

rity are ways of weakness and death. 
But Jesus was not content with these 
rules of Moses. A man might keep 
the letter of them all and yet fail to 
be a man of wholesome life. Here, as 
elsewhere, Jesus applied His rule of 
good-will in action. The fact of sex 
is of course fundamental in life and 
should be so recognized by young 
and old without hesitation or prudish- 
ness. The natural instinct of sex which 
attracts male and female to each other 
is an equally fundamental fact of so- 
ciety. In its raw and unregulated form 
it produces untold misery and de- 
grades men to a level which some- 
times seems to drop below that of the 
brutes. Touched with honor, on the 
other hand, this same instinct develops 
many of the most gracious traits of 



CONDUCT 97 

which men are capable. Loyalty, self- 
sacrifice, the understanding heart, and 
love stronger than death are all among 
the fruits of the Spirit grown on this 
field. 

How is the true Companion of the 
Way to regulate his conduct here? 
He is to try to be a constructive in- 
stead of a divisive and dissipating in- 
fluence. He will try to build up instead 
of to undermine the House of Life. 
No set of mere rules will enable him 
to do this, though rules will sometimes 
help. Good- will inaction — good-will 
that has its springs in the love of God 
and that reaches to the depths of the 
man's heart — holds the secret. That 
good-will leads him to respect the 
sources and processes of life. He can- 
not make these things the subjects of 



98 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

light conversation or the butt of cheap 
jokes. In all matters of sex he will be 
as frank and straightforward as need 
requires, while at the same time he is 
modest and surrounds the whole busi- 
ness with a decent reserve. In recent 
years much has been said and written 
about "sex-hygiene." It is wise and 
right that young people should be in- 
structed in regard to the mystery of 
sex and their conduct toward it. But 
beware of the people, young and old 
alike, who are always harping upon 
this theme. All that needs to be said 
can be said simply and briefly ; and 
this having been done it is well to 
drop the subject. Grave mischief may 
result from dwelling upon such themes 
or continually suggesting them ; and 
a subtle poison is sometimes distilled 



CONDUCT 99 

into the minds of teacher and pupil 
both by undue emphasis upon ques- 
tions of sex. Of late this subject has 
occupied an altogether disproportion- 
ate place in novel, essay, and drama. 
The world seems to have gone sex- 
mad; and if one lifts his voice in re- 
monstrance against the exaggeration 
of this topic, he will very likely be 
told that he is a prude or else afraid 
to face the facts of life. Do not fear 
that charge. The truth is that the re- 
monstrants here are very far from be- 
ing prudes. They believe right heart- 
ily in calling a spade a spade when 
necessity arises, and being done with 
it. But they do not believe in calling 
a spade a spade for the love of it and 
for the curiosity it arouses. This dwell- 
ing upon sexual themes is itself a form 



loo COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

of excess. It belongs to night and the 
shadows, instead of to sunlight and 
the wholesome day; and sometimes 
it brings woeful consequences in its 
train. "Avoid sensuality," said Cicero; 
'' for if you yield to it you will be un- 
able to think of anything else." That 
sort of semi-insanity, more often found 
outside asylums than within them, 
that holds the mind tyrannously to 
matters of sex, is the lot of such as 
refuse to practice a decent reserve not 
only before others, but with them- 
selves. The secret of good taste, sound 
health, and right conduct here is pu- 
rity of heart; and however strong the 
sex-instinct, purity of heart can be cul- 
tivated as well as other useful crops 
even when beset with weeds. 

We ought not to tolerate sugges- 



CONDUCT loi 

tive stories ; to possess or spread abroad 
suggestive prints; or to patronize plays 
and moving pictures that require sac- 
rifice of decency or common modesty 
for their production. There are ex- 
tremes of dress that plainly appeal to 
man's lower curiosity; fashions in 
magazine covers and in cheap stories 
that could have no reason for being 
except the hope that the sexual inter- 
est they arouse will extend their sale. 
It is right and proper that the authori- 
ties should deal with the more fla- 
grant of these offenses. But no public 
officer can meet the need here. Edu- 
cated and wholesome good taste that 
is as far from prudishness on the one 
hand as it is from lasciviousness on 
the other is needed; and Christian 
good-will must supply the motive. 



I02 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

Christian good-will dictates self-re- 
straint and a true respect for the pu- 
rity of the life of others. You may be 
puzzled sometimes by voices which 
cry out against the " conventions '' of 
society as though they were all bad 
and true freedom were to be won only 
in setting them at naught. That sort 
of talk is as easy as it is shallow. Its 
only chance of a hearing consists in 
the fact that there are so many people 
whose prejudices are easily aroused 
and whose minds are erratic and un- 
sure in their working. The true " con- 
ventions" of society are the things 
agreed upon in the light of experience 
by people who are trying to live to- 
gether in peace and mutual helpful- 
ness. They are the habits of society. 
Some are sound and good ; some bad 



CONDUCT 103 

and insincere. The great established 
standards of purity and decency are 
in the former class. They make for so- 
cial and individual health and peace. 
Do not let any cheap talk about Mrs. 
Grundy and her censorship shake your 
allegiance to the things that are pure, 
lovely, and of good report. The best 
way of getting rid of insincere conven- 
tions is to exalt and practice the con- 
ventions that are sound. The cant of 
mere unconventionality helps very lit- 
tle if at all. 

You cannot go very far along the 
Christian Way to-day without facing 
some aspect of the " Social Question." 
You will spend some money. I hope 
that you will earn some. You will, 
also, I hope, be employed by some in- 
dividual or group among your fel- 



I04 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

lows; and you are pretty certain in 
turn, either as an individual or as a 
member of a group, to employ others. 
Because a great deal of getting prop- 
erty has been greedy and much of its 
spending wasteful; because employ- 
ers are sometimes selfish and employ- 
ees dishonest, you will hear it said 
that it is impossible for a Christian to 
hold private property or for employ- 
ers or employees to walk together in 
the Christian Way. I do not believe 
this. But neither do I believe in sim- 
ply dismissing these hard sayings 
about society with a contemptuous 
remark that they are socialistic — as if 
that answered the real questions that 
they raise. Such questions are very se- 
rious and far-reaching. Those of you 
who are just entering active life are 



CONDUCT 105 

likely to find them brought home to 
you with an emphasis at which your 
grandparents would have wondered 
and which the most far-sighted of 
your parents could scarce have fore- 
seen. It does not seem to me likely 
that a day will come when the owner- 
ship of private property will cease, 
because the control of substance is a 
form of responsibility which so agrees 
with the idea of manhood that man- 
hood maybe said to need it. So we may 
hope that the relation of employer and 
employed may not cease ; because the 
training of master and servant is so 
good for everybody that everybody 
ought to learn both to command and 
to obey. But I hasten to add that the 
exclusive control of vast stores of sub- 
stance by one man, while multitudes 



io6 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

have nothing, is so far from ideal that 
it is not wholesome ; and that when the 
rich use their substance vainly and ex- 
travagantly their wealth becomes a 
positive menace to society. So while 
employers think of the men who take 
their wages merely as " hands " repre- 
senting nothing but a capacity for so 
much work, they are certainly out of 
the Way of Christ ; not only out of it 
themselves, but blocking the entrance 
against such as might come in. And 
quite as truly the wage-earner, when 
he agitates for class legislation or joins 
his fellows to close the way of advance- 
ment against some ambitious boy un- 
less the boy will join his union or wear 
his badge, or strikes with a view to us- 
ing public distress to gain his private 
ends, is equally out of the Way. Both 



CONDUCT 107 

under these circumstances are lending 
the creative and directive powers of a 
man to ill-will instead of to good-will. 
So common is this and so long con- 
tinued are many of these unbrotherly 
and vexatious practices that it is little 
wonder if men sometimes cry out for 
a clean wiping of the slate and a new 
start in the history of society. 

But that is not the way of progress. 
Our life together is a problem and a 
discipline. By degrees some elements 
of the problem are always being solved, 
some steps in the discipline are being 
profitably learned. This progress goes 
on wherever any man patiently and as 
a matter of principle brings good-will 
into action. Wherever this brotherly 
man appears his fellows see that the dis- 
tressing nightmare of the Social Prob- 



io8 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

lem is, as Professor Peabody has said, 
after all, only the sum of a great many 
social problems, some of which he is 
solving. If he is rich, he is perceived 
to be not a man of money, but a man 
of means, and the means are kept at 
work toward good ends. If he is poor, 
poverty does not enslave, degrade, or 
embitter him. He insists upon being 
a man of serviceable good-will in spite 
of it ; and in a multitude of instances 
he beautifully succeeds as those of us 
who have done much work among the 
poor can testify. Employers are by no 
means always selfish and grasping : 
employees are by no means always jeal- 
ous or grudging. Still, in multitudes of 
cases, despite industrial wars and their 
rumors, this relation of employer and 
employed is to the advantage of both 



CONDUCT 109 

Sides and issues in mutual respect and 
friendship. It works when men are fair 
to one another and bring good-will 
into daily action. 

What, now, shall be the conduct of 
the Christian in these circumstances ? 
Whether he have much substance or 
little, he is to remember that it repre- 
sents some one's toil in combination 
with the forces and resources of nature. 
It is so far forth sacred and must be 
used constructively, not frittered away 
upon mere frivolity. If he is an em- 
ployer he must pay fair wages, see to 
it that safe and wholesome conditions 
surround his employees, not merely 
consent to, but work for, such plans 
for compensation, insurance, and the 
proper division of profits as shall give 
peace of mind and hope in the future as 



no COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

well as present bodily welfare to those 
who take his wage ; and he should do 
this, not as a matter of patronage or 
condescension, for these poison the 
springs of good-will, but out of the re- 
spect which he bears to them as his fel- 
low-men and out of his recognition of 
their "stake" in his business; since 
the thing into which a man puts his 
vital energy, whether of brain or mus- 
cle, he must have as real a share in as 
the man who puts in money. 

But this sharing of profit and priv- 
ilege involves responsibility which 
only the employee who brings to 
his task good-will as well as skill or 
strength is likely to recognize. The 
bane of the labor union to-day is not 
its struggle for existence, but its am- 
bition to dominate society in its own 



CONDUCT III 

interests. As a Christian you should 
take a deep and sympathetic interest 
in the struggle which the workmen 
of a century ago made for the right to 
combine and to improve their condi- 
tion. It is often pathetic and some- 
times tragic. As a Christian you must 
take an equal interest in the struggle 
as it still goes on. You will often find 
it hard to know exactly where to 
stand; for labor unions have grown 
rich and powerful. Like rich and 
powerful combinations of capital they 
incline to be tyrannous and to fight 
for dominion rather than right. Wher- 
ever ill-will and bitterness are sown 
because leaders find them to be con- 
venient weapons your course is clear. 
Ill-will is wrong. And wherever you 
find a tendency in yourself to exag- 



112 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

gerate the faults of the labor union so 
as to breed prejudice against it your 
course is again clear. Ill-will is still 
wrong. Good-will, on the other hand, 
is always right and will finally prove 
its ability to solve the multitude of 
social problems of which the Social 
Problem is composed. Of course this 
good-will is no mere soft and unctuous 
sentiment. It is a deep conviction or 
attitude of life that leads a man to see 
things as they are whether they seem 
for him or against him, and enlists his 
influence upon the side of that which 
is fair and brotherly whether it involve 
his own immediate gain or loss. That 
good-will is abroad in the world. It 
is safe to say that more people who 
own property are feeling its posses- 
sion and use to be a matter of con- 



CONDUCT 113 

science than ever before; and that more 
employers of labor are perceiving the 
responsibilities of their position than 
ever before and recognizing the right- 
ful partnership of their employees. 
But the world has still a great way to 
go in this direction. This, however, is 
the tack upon which society is sailing 
just now in its slow and zigzag prog- 
ress against the winds of circum- 
stance; and I have dealt at unusual 
length with this aspect of Christian 
conduct, because it is here that there 
is a special call for that divine good- 
will in action which must save the 
world. 

This same Spirit of Christ must 
animate your choice of a profession 
or calling in life, your amusements, 
your service in the Church, and your 



114 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

setting up of a home. The great pro- 
fessions deal primarily with people 
and their service, instead of with 
things and one's own gain. Accord- 
ing to their loyalty to this ideal they 
are held in honor and confer honor 
upon those who follow them. The 
really serviceable physician, clergy- 
man, teacher, or lawyer may or may 
not make a generous living; but he 
is pretty sure to develop a generous 
life and to be held in grateful honor 
by many people, because he has helped 
them in ignorance, perplexity, or suf- 
fering. He has been a constructive 
force in the common life, his good- 
will proves to be contagious, and 
happily long survives his own bodily 
presence. This sort of thing is to be 
sought in choosing a life-work and 



CONDUCT 115 

the Christian will consider the con- 
structive quality of his calling. A 
thing that needs to be emphasized, 
however, is that these same high qual- 
ities belong to many other modes of 
livelihood that are too little esteemed. 
It is the fashion to speak slightingly 
of the retail merchant, for instance, as 
though he were peculiarly liable to a 
sordid mind. In fiction the grocer may 
be said to represent a recognized type. 
He may be decent ; possibly respect- 
able ; but scarcely generous and hon- 
orable. It is a cynical and altogether 
unworthy conclusion. The selling of 
butter, eggs, and flour is not an ex- 
alted business; but it is a highly 
necessary one, and when long and 
honestly continued it develops men 
worthy of honor. There are opportu- 



ii6 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

nities for petty cheating in such a 
business. Some men yield to their 
temptation ; but many other men do 
not. They serve their customers and 
many of them go beyond the bounds 
of safety in serving the poor. It is the 
part of the Christian to use a wise 
and generous independence in esti- 
mating the worth of such work. 

Especially is this true when we ap- 
proach the great fundamental callings 
that furnish our homes and tables. The 
carpenter, the mason, the fisherman, 
and above all the farmer, with their 
corps of manual helpers, represent an 
indispensable element in society whose 
worth needs a new appraisal in the 
light of Christ's Law of Love. Every 
one of us ought to do some manual 
labor, not merely for necessary exer- 



CONDUCT 117 

cise, but for our manhood's sake. The 
moment we begin it in earnest two 
things happen. A new understanding 
of the men who do this work all the 
time begins to dawn upon us together 
with a heightened good-will toward 
them ; and at the same time we real- 
ize how great a store of real skill 
and learning many of them have ac- 
quired. The successful farmer in par- 
ticular, who keeps his land up, raises 
a variety of crops by means of ele- 
ments which he can only partly con- 
trol, feeds his family and helps to feed 
the world, is often a really learned 
man, at whose feet any one of us might 
profitably sit; and not infrequently he 
is a man with notable gifts of shrewd 
judgment and pungent speech into 
the bargain. I count it to be one of 



ii8 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

the happy characteristics of my own 
calling that it has brought me into 
intimate association with all sorts and 
conditions of men in town and coun- 
try both. Among these as life has 
gone on, I have set increasing store by 
acquaintance with men who worked 
with their hands as well as their heads 
and worked in the elemental materials 
of earth and water. They have taught 
me much; their society, and I hope 
it may be added, their friendship, has 
proved to be a never-failing delight; 
and the sense of their individual and 
collective worth has deepened my re- 
spect for my fellow-men. The Chris- 
tian who really wants to know the 
value and power of good-will in the 
world will follow his Master in culti- 
vating the friendship of plain men. 



CONDUCT 119 

On the other hand, he will avoid 
any effort to exploit or take unfair ad- 
vantage of them. No way of getting 
a living which dissipates human en- 
ergy or takes advantage of human 
ignorance is worthy of a Christian. 
The saloon-keeper, for instance, may 
himself seem to be a kind-hearted and 
even a considerate man. The fact re- 
mains that he is depending for his 
income upon an appetite for strong 
drink among his fellows which is gen- 
erally unfortunate and often highly 
vicious. He may say that he serves 
his neighbors. But it is not a con- 
structive service. It dissipates their 
money and their energies; and in a 
multitude of cases it intensifies their 
already diseased appetite until they 
are its almost helpless slaves. This is 



I20 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

an extreme case; but the principle in- 
volved governs a multitude of other 
cases. The man who gets a large com- 
mission for selling cheap goods, or 
who takes advantage of the instinct 
of adventure in his neighbor to lead 
him into dubious speculation, is just 
as truly dissipating his resources and 
proving a traitor to the Fellowship of 
the Way. No business in which one 
man's gain must be another's loss is 
worthy of a Christian. Cooperation, 
instead of cut-throat competition, is 
the rule of brotherhood. Hence, all 
quackery that uses insincere means to 
gain business is to be avoided, not 
only because it is liable to cheat one's 
fellow-men, but because it introduces 
distrust and cynicism into society and 
tends to degrade great and useful pro- 



CONDUCT 121 

fessions. The quack is generally a per- 
son who takes advantage of another's 
inexperience or distress to make money 
out of him while pretending to render 
some valuable service.] Here, for in- 
stance, is the traveling doctor who 
stops for a day or two in a place. His 
advent is announced in the local pa- 
per, very likely with his portrait and 
a sensational picture of the examina- 
tion of a patient by his " X-ray " ma- 
chine. The whole thing is so crude 
that it would seem laughable to well- 
instructed people were it not for its 
real appeal to multitudes of the sick 
and ignorant. They know that very 
remarkable investigations are made 
by means of these machines ; they are 
quite unable to see the patent absurd- 
ities in this man's picture of its use, 



122 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

but are impressed by his glibncss, give 
him their confidence and money, and 
he departs to reap other fields. His 
real stock in trade is his own effront- 
ery and the sorrows of his neighbors. 
From time to time my desk is del- 
uged with the advertisements of a so- 
called evangelist who is trying to sell 
land in a southern state. The plan 
of a " city " to be called by the pro- 
moter's name; of a ''university" 
whose president has already been 
chosen, although the school itself has 
nothing to show beyond a tract of un- 
developed land; and all the accepted 
paraphernalia of the "get-rich-quick" 
schemers are there. But most dread- 
ful is the advertisement of this man's 
success as a preacher — the "souls 
that have been saved " under his min- 



CONDUCT 123 

istry — as a guaranty of his business. 
Even if one were to grant that his 
land IS all that he claims it to be, the 
fact would still remain that it is an 
intolerable thing for any true preacher 
of the Gospel to advertise his success 
and use it to promote the sale of 
commodities. The whole thing rings 
false and illustrates anew how closely 
allied are loose morals and bad taste. 
Such means, no doubt, sometimes 
yield dollars; but they are won at a 
bitter cost. The pettifogging lawyer 
who stirs up strife and urges damage 
suits in order that he may skim the 
cream from the awards, gives another 
instance of a livelihood won by using 
men with their sorrows, hopes, and 
sometimes their hates as pawns in a 
sordid game. The Companion of the 



124 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

Way will have no part in all this. 
He will be too loyal to Jesus Christ 
and to the Fellowship of believing 
souls to exploit anybody's ignorance 
or need; and if he cannot live by 
other means than these, he can at 
least die — a consummation far more 
devoutly to be wished than a life sus- 
tained by unbrotherly means. 



PROBLEMS OF THE WAY 
3. "MAKING one's SOUL" 

" To make one's soul " is a phrase 
we owe to the French. It is a good 
phrase because it emphasizes the re- 
sponsibility of every man to keep the 
lamp of the Spirit alight in his life. 
One of the sorry things in your ex- 
perience is likely to be the sight of 
some man of generous impulse in his 
youth shrinking and hardening in his 
age. He may continue to be a man 
of correct outward habit; but he 
ceases to be responsive to the appeal 
of life except along a very narrow 
front which is occupied by a few per- 
sonal appetites or interests. This is 



126 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

especially noticeable in the case of a 
certain type of college man, who, 
after showing large promise in college 
days, grows cynical and selfish with 
the years. He is, not infrequently, a 
successful man as the world estimates 
success; but the success has often 
been won along the lines of mere 
money-making, or by pushing his 
personal interests athwart the paths 
of his fellows and of society at large. 
He may conceivably give money to 
good causes; but he no longer has 
hopes, enthusiasms, generous sympa- 
thies, or personal services to give. 
The trouble is not so much that he 
has been a '' bad " man as that he has 
failed to feed his soul. 

Now, as life goes on and as the 
crust or callus of habit tends to make 



MAKING ONE^S SOUL 127 

US less responsive to impulse from 
without, it is increasingly important 
that the best of these impulses should 
have allies within. Where those allies 
are active and well equipped, life 
keeps its zest. Often, indeed, its last 
days are its best days. I cannot re- 
member to have seen a teacher, mis- 
sionary, or physician active-ly devoted 
to the higher interests of his calling 
who ever despaired of his world. One 
of the curious things about well- 
equipped missionaries who live among 
backward peoples is, that while they 
are almost uniquely informed about 
the frailties, perversities, and sins of 
these peoples, they always show an 
affection for them and a confidence 
in their development that is far more 
than merely professional. The man 



128 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

whom you serve may be very low 
down in the human scale ; but he not 
only seems "worth while" to you; 
he deepens the life of your soul 
and lends interest to your world. 
However hard his case or vexatious 
his problems, life is bound to remain 
interesting so long as you continue to 
give attention to them. You may 
deal with the ugly only to find your 
sense of beauty heightened; and with 
the somber only to discover that the 
springs of humor flow more plente- 
ously. The reason is that you are fol- 
lowing a course of life which nour- 
ishes the soul. You are cultivating 
an appetite for the things by which 
men live; and while that appetite 
persists and finds its normal food, life 
will always justify itself. 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 129 

Two lines of activity help in this 
development of the soul, both of 
w^hich easily become so instinctive 
that the sense of effort is lost. One 
looks toward service of those about 
us; the other toward a deepening of 
our sense of God. Many thoughtful 
people would say that we must have 
a sense of God and a purpose to 
serve Him before we can render our 
best service to our fellows; and this 
I think to be true. But men and wo- 
men so often come, like Abou ben 
Adhem, to realize their spiritual needs 
and privileges through their attempts 
to solve the problems set by others' 
need that I shall consider this service 
of others first. 

Its nearest and most intimate exam- 
ple is probably in the Family. Some 



I30 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

of you may wonder at this and per- 
haps question it because of a notion 
deeply embedded in many minds that 
the Family is an institution which 
will somehow manage itself. Indeed, a 
great many discussions of family prob- 
lems just now seem based upon the 
theory that if the Family cannot hap- 
pily maintain itself without any special 
effort on the part of those who com- 
pose it, then the family relation is a 
failure. This is like crying when one 
looks at his neglected garden and its 
weeds, " What a disheartening sight ! 
What unrewarding soil ! What a fail- 
ure a garden is ! " Meanwhile across 
the way and in the same soil appears 
a garden that is at once cheerful and 
fruitful because its owner has thought 
it worth his thought and effort. These 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 131 

It has rewarded, not only by giving 
him food to eat, but by vastly en- 
hancing his interest in life and, inci- 
dentally, very likely, that hold upon it 
which we call health. The difference 
between the two gardeners is that one, 
by overlooking his responsibilities, has 
missed the privileges upon which his 
gaze was fixed, while the other, by put- 
ting first things first, has found the 
kindly fruits of the earth appearing in 
their season ; and to these material re- 
wards has been added a sense of living 
in an ordered universe where he may 
rule the earth and win the sun and 
wind to be his allies. It was an inspired 
instinct that led the Hebrew writer to 
place our first parents in a garden ; for 
a garden is a place where the process 
of creation still goes on. Disobedience 



132 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

and neglect with their consequent 
weeds always invite a return of chaos, 
while self-control and service as cer- 
tainly bring in that ordered beauty 
which the Greeks called " cosmos." 

Now the Family is the unit of so- 
ciety. It raises the individual to his 
own higher powers and at the same 
time gives him his most intimate ex- 
perience of other individuals. Here in 
the Family we gain our first and best 
lessons in the worth of human affec- 
tion, in respect for rightful authority, 
in the true significance of sex, in the 
practical management of affairs, and 
especially in the art of getting on with 
other people. It has often been re- 
marked that the development of man 
from a position but little above the 
brutes to his place of dominion was 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 133 

coincident with, if not due to, the 
lengthening of his infancy. Young 
animals quickly mature to the point 
where they can feed and protect them- 
selves. Their physical growth is rapid 
and they depend so much upon in- 
stinct that they have relatively little to 
learn. The human baby is not only 
helpless for a far longer period than the 
young of any other creature ; he has 
also everything to learn. For a long 
time his food must be furnished him 
in the simplest and most easily di- 
gested forms ; for a yet longer time he 
must be clothed and protected against 
the elements by the efforts of others 
than himself; while longest of all is the 
period of his education, during which 
he has to learn everything from walk- 
ing, speaking, and dreading the fire. 



134 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

to the practice of some useful calling 
and the secret of competent wrestling 
with the larger problems of life. The 
necessity of such care as shall accom- 
plish this has developed family affec- 
tion. The children of parents who 
were faithful to each other and to their 
parental duties have had in the long 
run a better chance than the children 
of others. They have not only sur- 
vived, but they have also tended to 
become dominant and to set their im- 
press upon their world. Hence, as the 
race has developed by these means 
the means themselves have grown in 
esteem, until the family relation in 
which one man and one woman with 
their children make and keep their 
own home has come to be regarded 
as the ideal unit of society ; and mem- 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 135 

bership in such a family has long been 
thought to be the ideal lot of man, 
woman, and child. 

It still remains the best garden for 
the growing of a soul; and it will 
be a sorry day when young men and 
women cease to think of home-making 
as an ideal fulfillment of their lives. 
But the fact must be reiterated that 
homes do not make themselves happy 
any more than gardens keep them- 
selves fruitful. The great blessings of 
life must be planned and paid for. It 
is not to be expected that a man and 
a woman of any force of character will 
have precisely the same tastes or hab- 
its. If they are reasonably mature when 
they marry, there is an inevitable pe- 
riod of adjustment which must be ex- 
pected and patiently borne with. She 



136 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

was a wise woman who once told a 
young man about to be married not 
to expect the first year of his married 
life to be the happiest. She raised no 
question about the love which these 
young people had for each other; but 
her eyes were open to the fact that as 
soon as they returned from their wed- 
ding journey and began to face life's 
responsibilities, a period of trial must 
necessarily follow. Each must needs 
get used to the other; each must learn 
to respect the other's rights and be 
willing to make some sacrifice both 
of time and taste for the other's sake. 
This always takes both grace and pa- 
tience. There is something tragic in 
the dismay with which some young 
people discover what they think to be 
" incompatibility of temperament " in 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 137 

those with whom they are mated. The 
road to happiness does not lie along 
the path of least resistance here. It 
must be repeated that homes do not 
make themselves. Those who would 
have them must bring good-will in the 
spirit of service to their making. This 
may not always be easy, but it is prac- 
ticable in a multitude of cases where 
it is not practiced. In many homes 
little effort in this direction is required 
because of similarity of taste, easy and 
adaptable dispositions, and a mutual 
affection that overrides all threats of 
circumstance. In others the advent 
of children rouses latent capacities for 
service and devotion on the part of 
both parents. Many a selfish man has 
found the birth of his child to repre- 
sent his own new birth into a larger 



ijS COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

and less selt-centered world; while 
many :i woman threatened with fri- 
volity has had her first large glimpse 
of life's seriousness as well as of its 
abiding saristactions when she held her 
baby in her arms. These things help 
'' to make the soul," and I have known 
a considerable number ot people 
whose own search for the Way beiian 
with a desire that their children should 
follow it. Thus the normal person 
finds the world without as well as the 
heart within demanding:; some culture 
of the spiritual life — crying out, as 
the Psalmist said, for the living God. 
I have chosen the family relation to 
illustrate how all true and generous 
service helps to meet as well as to 
emphasize this demand. - 
• A chief means to this culture of the 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 139 

spiritual life is to be found in private 
prayer and public worship. It is a 
curious perversion of knowledge that 
leads some good people to feel that 
they cannot pray because, as they say, 
"they find themselves in a world of 
law." They imply that if it were a 
world of whim ruled by a despot, they 
might find room for prayer and hope 
by means of it to mould the despot's 
will. But the Christian idea of prayer 
is precisely fitted to an ordered uni- 
verse — it presupposes an ordered 
universe, indeed, instead of a chaos 
of whims and fancies. The Compan- 
ion of Jesus Christ believes in a God 
" Who leadeth forth the seven Stars 
and Orion, and Who turneth the 
shadow of death into the morning." 
That is to say, this man feels the 



I40 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

world to be so ordered and developed 
that wherever he searches amid its 
wonders he finds something that cor- 
responds to the working of his mind. 
He looks to the planets and finds that 
their orbits can be mathematically 
expressed and the rules of their going 
and coming written down. The world 
is saturated with thought. Every phe- 
nomenon or occurrence which attracts 
his notice is like a door indicating to 
him that somewhere within there lives 
a reasonable explanation or account 
of what he has beheld. If his mind 
knocks at that door with patience and 
courtesy, he will be admitted to ac- 
quaintance and it may be to partner- 
ship with this indwelling and outwork- 
ing mind. Some doors open slowly; 
others at a touch ; but none fails to 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 141 

reveal signs of orderly thought; as 
though there were something wrapped 
up in every event which corresponded 
to the inquiring mind without. He 
Who lives behind the doors which 
are always being opened is clearly re- 
lated to him who knocks at them. 
Now and then a man cries out that 
there is nothing here but undirected 
force and unthinking chance ; but the 
world cannot be convinced. Where 
thought so clearly and invariably 
comes out, thought must have its 
home. 

Moreover, men have generally felt 
that this Power which appears in 
events moving on in a vast creative 
process, could be communicated with. 
The best and bravest of them have 
felt its Presence as a great fact of life 



142 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

from which strength and comfort have 
come to them. The most far-seeing 
and memorable of these men have felt 
that this Power made for righteous- 
ness and that those who did justice, 
loved mercy, and walked graciously 
in the world were the men who most 
really cast in their lot with It, knew 
It best, and knew It to be God. Jesus 
Christ called God, Father, taught that 
He loved men, and that in His wor- 
ship and service men would find peace. 
It seems certain that in this faith and 
practice Jesus Himself won not only 
peace, but a conquest of the world of 
circumstance. Multitudes who have 
tried His Way have had a like expe- 
rience. And the Way is open still. 

Prayer is that natural and necessary 
intercourse which a child has with 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 143 

such a Father. It will include requests, 
but never demands, since the child 
will realize his inability to grasp the 
Father's plans so completely as to jus- 
tify a demand which might otherwise 
bring confusion into the larger order 
of the world. But most of all will this 
Prayer consist in communion — that 
is, in an opening of heart and life to 
One Who understands. Here any re- 
quest may be brought forward, any 
burden presented, and every perplex- 
ity stated. It is in this experience that 
the proportions of a distorted life may 
be restored, its burdens lightened, its 
sins forgiven, its fountains refilled, and 
its shallows deepened. This is not the 
place for an extended discussion of 
the philosophy of prayer; I am sim- 
ply noting the flict that the act of 



144 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

prayer, intelligently and humbly per- 
formed, is a chief agent in keeping 
the soul not only alive, but refreshed, 
happy, and girt for service. 

Private prayer does for our souls 
what our daily baths and tables do for 
our bodies. It cleanses and feeds them, 
thereby enlarging the outlook and 
strengthening the heart of the whole 
man. Public worship carries the proc- 
ess on. It finds us as members of a 
burdened and troubled society with 
cares, sins, hopes, aspirations, disap- 
pointments. It helps to put us into 
our right relations both as individuals 
and as component parts of society. 
Many a restless and distempered soul 
would be at once calmed and uplifted 
by quiet meditation with its fellows 
in the House of God. There is a gen- 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 145 

erous aspect to the act of praise which 
tends to enlarge us when we grow 
petty and self-centered. No service 
which makes the offering of our sub- 
stance a part of its worship can fail to 
bind us more closely to our fellow- 
men and make us conscious that we 
belong to the family of God — an ex- 
perience which brings enduring satis- 
faction. And preaching, even when 
in itself rather commonplace, always 
tends, so far as it is a sincere attempt 
to deal with life's larger issues, to en- 
noble us by its reminder that we are 
creatures of two worlds and that the 
business of neither can properly be 
done without some reference to the 
other. John Bunyan as a tinker or a 
maker of tagged lace was not neces- 
sarily a very significant person; but 



146 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

this same man mending pots and pans 
or sitting by his jail door, knotting 
lace with the vision of the Celestial 
City and the way thither before his 
eyes, became a notable element in the 
world's thought and conduct. When 
we neglect earth for Heaven, our lives 
threaten to become unreal. When we 
neglect Heaven for earth, they grow 
narrow, hard, and profitless, while the 
inevitable grave threatens them with 
defeat. But when we walk the earth 
with firm and purposeful tread on our 
way to Heaven, the humblest of us all 
becomes a figure of dignity and power. 
It makes a difference, as a wise teacher 
recently remarked, whether a man 
feels that he is going to the scrap- 
heap or whether he is going home. 
The whole tendency of public wor- 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 147 

ship and of private prayer is to assure 
men that their life and conduct have 
real significance and dignity which 
death shall enhance rather than dimin- 
ish. This, too, helps in the making 
of a soul. 

You will find it of further and 
great advantage to identify yourself 
with the Christian Church in its serv- 
ice of the world. Reference has been 
made in an earlier chapter to our ob- 
ligation to confess ourselves as Dis- 
ciples. As Companions of the Way 
it behooves us to walk in the open. 
But in view of the large number of 
Christians and the manifold need of 
the world it is necessary that we or- 
ganize our resources to meet the 
need. This was done in the early 
Church and with more or less effi- 



148 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

ciency it has been done ever since. 
Some people delight to point out the 
inefficiencies, blunders, and occasional 
disloyalties of the Church in face of 
the world's need, and they do not 
lack illustrations. The Church no 
doubt deserves their rebuke. Yet the 
fact remains that the Church is the 
one perennial institution which works 
ceaselessly for the making of men's 
souls. So far from ever altogether 
neglecting its task it is continually 
discerning new and higher opportu- 
nities of adventure. The ordinary ob- 
server fails to realize what a tremen- 
dously fruitful agency organized 
religion has been and still remains. 
It is probably safe to say that no 
great organization has mothered so 
many children whom she has con- 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 149 

tinued to support after they have re- 
nounced her or after she has with- 
drawn her parental control over them. 
The larger institutions of learning arc 
among these; so are the hospitals; so 
are the Young Men's and Young 
Women's Christian Associations; so 
are multitudes of lesser organizations. 
Not long since a Boys' Club was 
started in a New England village 
which at once showed that it met a 
real want in the common life. Who 
started it ? The answer will have out- 
lined itself in the reader's mind as 
soon as it is asked. The minister of 
one of the churches; while a group 
of unselfish people, who cared greatly 
for the best interests of the commu- 
nity and the growing boys in it, gave 
time, thought, and money to the ad- 



I50 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

venture. Almost as a matter of course 
they were generally to be found 
among the workers in the local 
churches. The first suggestions and 
material encouragements had come, 
however, from a friend whose interest 
in such work was so deep that it had 
grown to be a chief avocation of his 
life. Where had this interest been 
awakened and fostered? Again the 
answer is instinctively anticipated. It 
was under the influence of a great met- 
ropolitan down-town church. Now 
these people could have claimed this 
new organization as belonging to the 
Church. In point of fact they did 
not; but let it be clearly seen that 
they desired to maintain no sectarian 
or ecclesiastical control over it. A 
director was employed, and it was 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 151 

hoped that influences fitted to reach 
the hearts and mould the wills of the 
boys would be exerted; but no merely 
sectarian tests or means were used to 
attain this end. The thing moved on 
its own beneficent way and might 
easily have been cited by a careless 
onlooker as an instance of moral and 
spiritual endeavor quite apart from 
the Christian Church; or have pointed 
his criticism of the inefficiency and 
nervelessness of a church that should 
let such promising work slip from its 
hands. None the less the spirit of 
interest that gave it birth, the over- 
sight that kept it useful, the money 
that paid its bills, and the devotion 
that assured its continuance, all came 
almost as directly from the Church 
of Jesus Christ as though its charter 



152 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

had borne a bundle of ecclesiastical 
seals. 

It is one instance among many of 
the fashion in which the Church spends 
herself for the common good with no 
reward except the service and the 
satisfaction of seeing the Kingdom 
grow. She labors to develop a sense 
of unity in life — unity between God 
and man, between the soul and the 
world of circumstance, and between 
each man and his fellow-men. She is 
all the time trying to teach the world 
what President Hadley has called 
two or three of the most important 
practical lessons of Christianity: the 
habit of intellectual contact which 
we call "mutual understanding"; the 
habit of social contact which we 
call "cooperation"; and the habit 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 153 

of spiritual contact which we call 
" courtesy." * 

It is idle to say that the Church 
has neither taught nor practiced these 
lessons well. She has taught and 
practiced them after a fashion which 
is a great deal better than not teach- 
ing and practicing them at all ; and 
during the last century she has made 
rapid strides toward a better under- 
standing of her world, a better co- 
operation of all the spiritual agencies 
in it, and a higher courtesy toward 
all with whom she deals. As the 
agencies toward applying these les- 
sons to life's specific problems are 
developed they are apt to pass out of 
the Church's control, sometimes to 

I Anniversary sermon delivered before Yale 
University, October 22, 1916. 



IS4> COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

the delight of the scoffer and to the 
Church's own sorrow, but upon the 
whole to the world's advantage. " Sic 
vos non vobis " sang the Latin poet as 
he watched the bees; "so you labor, 
but not for yourselves." It is the true 
office of the Christian Church. Ac- 
quisition of vast possessions and the 
exercise of temporal power do not 
suit her genius. Her great adventure 
is not receiving but giving, minister- 
ing rather than being ministered unto, 
inspiring organization for good works 
rather than managing machineries. 
But in this adventure of sending the 
Word of Good-will around the world 
as well as of teaching mutual under- 
standing, cooperation, and courtesy 
in the next street, she must have 
helpers. Despite all that the scoffers 



MAKING ONE'S SOUL 155 

say, the people who make up her 
worshiping congregations are the peo- 
ple who are to be counted upon most 
certainly to further the work which 
she inspires. 

It is this adventure which every 
Companion of Christ's Way is called 
to share. He is asked to go as far 
as he has scope upon the errands of 
grace — that is, of good-will moving 
out spontaneously to the common 
service;' to give as he has means; 
and to serve as he has abilities. In 
order that worship may be signif- 
icant and service may bring results 
Christian men must band them- 
selves together. Their cooperation 
in the Church of Christ will help both 

* I owe this definition to the late Principal 
Fairbairn. 



156 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY . 

the world and the individual to make 
their souls. In so far as you are a 
true Companion of the Way you will 
not shirk that duty. 



VI 

BROOKS IN THE WAY 

The reader of" The Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress " — and every lover of good liter- 
ature should know it — will remember 
that while the Pilgrim's way is often 
hard and sometimes dangerous, it is 
by no means lacking in places for re- 
laxation and refreshment. There was 
an Arbor on the slope of the Hill 
Difficulty; and on the Hill's crest, 
close by the highway side, stood the 
House Beautiful with its hospitable 
welcome, its good companionship, and 
its "large upper chamber, whose win- 
dow opened toward the Sun rising,'' 
called Peace. Nor does Bunyan dis- 
dain to tell us before he sends his Pil- 



158 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

grim to rest, " what Christian had to 
his supper." The Psalmist, too, in pic- 
turing the triumph of God's champion, 
represents him as coming weary out 
of battle, but, pausing to drink of the 
brook in his way, he lifts up his head 
and presses on refreshed. The ascetic 
life distrusts if it does not fear this 
phase of experience. It dreads relaxa- 
tion whose danger it so well knows. 
The self-indulgent soul, on the other 
hand, exalts relaxation into one of 
life's employments. He sleeps in the 
Arbor instead of merely resting there ; 
he lingers in the House Beautiful long 
after the real object of its hospitality 
has been accomplished; and when 
the Brook of Refreshment appears, in- 
stead of drinking and pressing on re- 
freshed, he dallies by it until the Way 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 159 

is in danger of being altogether for- 
gotten. 

Here, then, is one of the problems 
which the honest traveler will face 
and try to solve. Life is meant to be 
a thing of alternating experiences ; of 
waking and sleeping, working and 
resting, the spending of self upon 
good objects and the re-creation of 
vital force. The Brook in the Way 
is as real an experience of the well- 
ordered Christian as the enemy to be 
overcome or the task to be accom- 
plished. But the secret of thus order- 
ing life aright is the use of these 
means of refreshment as happy inci- 
dents rather than ends of experience. 
The Christian who can relax the strain 
without untwisting the fiber of his life 
always gains something in the process. 



i6o COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

He adds a generous humanity and 
grace to his integrity. Jonathan Ed- 
wards, good man though he was and 
progressive, too, far beyond the meas- 
ure of his day, seems unlovely to us 
when judged by the sermon on "Sin- 
ners in the Hands of an Angry God," 
which unfortunately was sensational 
enough to have become more gener- 
ally known than anything else in the 
mass of his writing. But when, through 
the pages of his "Journal," we see him 
walking in the Saybrook fields on a 
Sunday afternoon, his heart brimming 
with the sunlight of earth as well as 
heaven, we seem to know a very dif- 
ferent man whom it is far easier to 
love. 

If you would gain access to a spring 
of refreshment that tends to grow 



' BROOKS IN THE WAY i6i 

sweeter with years, I commend a real 
and first-hand acquaintance with our 
Mother Earth which God long ago 
pronounced good. There is a story 
of an old priest who was once found 
traveling in the Rocky Mountains, 
He seemed so remote from his accus- 
tomed haunts that a fellow-traveler 
asked him how at his age he had 
chanced to come so far. The priest 
replied that some time before he had 
seen himself in a dream going up to 
the gates of Heaven. St. Peter met 
him there and among other inquiries 
asked how he had enjoyed the beauty 
of the earth amid which he had lived 
so long; to whom he, sorely abashed, 
was forced to answer that he had never 
thought much about it. Upon waking 
he resolved to repair this loss so far 



1 62 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

as might be, and set out upon his 
journey. It was a worthy attempt to 
make up for lost opportunity; but 
the sober fact remains that if the good 
priest had missed the beauty of the 
four seasons passing over his parson- 
age garden in youth, he was scarcely 
likely to appreciate even the Alps or 
Rocky Mountains in his age. We may 
or may not go afield to see famous 
spectacles; none the less, the world 
in its daily and yearly turning will 
bring the beauty, not of the earth 
alone, but of the heavens to us. Yet 
to see it one must look humbly down 
into the grasses and mosses, abroad 
with eyes wide open to the vast vari- 
ety of sun, cloud, rain, and wind in 
the trees that the seasons bring, and 
reverently up into the sky. It is a 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 163 

curious fact that many a discoverer 
and revealer of the world's beauty has 
himself led the most humdrum and 
stay-at-home life. Immanuel Kant has 
profoundly influenced the thought of 
civilized man for a century. He de- 
lighted in the wonder of the heart 
\^thin and of the stars above. Yet 
during his working life he scarce ever 
went a day's journey from Konigs- 
berg. William Cowper taught Eng- 
lish poetry a new language and wrote 
some of the most delectable letters 
that were ever put on paper. But he, 
too, was a recluse whose health kept 
him to the quiet walks of Olney and 
Weston. Both these men were, how- 
ever, great readers of books dealing 
with travel and adventure, and close 
observers of certain aspects of the 



i64 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

world in which they lived, so that 
their lives seemed set like pictures in 
the goodly frame of earth. The en- 
tomologist, J. Henri Fabre, v/ho has 
become so recently and deservedly fa- 
mous, is another and striking illustra- 
tion of a life which seemed cabined 
and meager, but which really was full 
of variety and delight because he 
knew the ways of insects and entered 
so affectionately into lives that the 
world at large ignored or despised. 

It is by no means necessary to be 
either a philosopher, a poet, or a. sci- 
entist to make such things as these 
men studied refresh us. A little sound 
knowledge joined to a spirit of appre- 
ciation will go a long way here. A 
half-dozen flowers that have become 
well known, even though they be so 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 165 

commonplace as carpenter's-heal or 
yarrow, will lend interest to a walk ; a 
few friendly stars, expected as their 
appropriate seasons come, and speak- 
ing to us something of the message 
which they once brought to Homer, 
Virgil, or the Author of Job, dis- 
tinctly enlarge life's scope; and suffi- 
cient acquaintance with trees to en- 
able one to distinguish the delicate 
tracery of the elm from the rather 
brusque sturdiness of the ash, or the 
honest autumn glow of the staghorn 
sumac in the pasture from the intense 
brilliance of its poisonous cousin {rhus 
vernix) in the swamp, will sometimes 
lift an ordinary railway journey out 
of the tiresome and commonplace 
and set it in the ranks of the memo- 
rable. 



1 66 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

A Similar distinction is to be noted 
with reference to the part which ani- 
mals play in our lives. Both wild and 
domestic creatures have their uses. 
But some people take their presence 
to be a mere matter of course, while 
others find entertainment and refresh- 
ment in it. A man who has ridden 
many horses in his day will have a 
store of reminiscence so varied and in- 
teresting as he reviews these dumb 
companionships as notably to enrich 
life's later years. The great plains and 
canyons of western Texas will always 
be associated in the writer's mind with 
a horse as ugly to look at as he was 
easy to sit ; pictures of the Levant as 
they rise tend to group themselves 
about a gray Syrian stallion that once 
carried me from Jerusalem to Tyre 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 167 

and Sidon; and some of my most 
memorable experiences of light and 
shadow on New England fields have 
found me on the back of a shapely 
chestnut gelding, whose mental proc- 
esses were occasionally as queer as 
his general companionship was com- 
forting. These things may not belong 
to the absolute essence of life; but 
they play so large a part in its atmos- 
phere as to draw a line of distinction 
between the man who is thankful for 
them and him who ignores them. 

The same thing is true of the dog 
or cat beside your hearth. Religion is 
meant to ^each them through your 
unfailing kindness and the intelli- 
gence and firmness of your discipline. 
They in turn have something to give 
that shall refresh your travel along 



i68 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

the Way. Now and then you hear a 
worthy person proclaim his fondness 
for dogs in a truculent "tone which 
clearly implies that he hates cats. He 
does not observe that he is really pro- 
claiming the limitations of his own 
nature. Happy the man to whom the 
purring domesticity and exquisite 
grace of his cat can bring as real a 
comfort as the hearty fellowship of his 
dog. Both have their failings. The 
dog is sometimes cruel to his victim 
with a bitterness to which a cat's play 
with her mouse never attains, and the 
cat is so inscrutable in her going out 
and coming in that, like Montaigne, 
we wonder whether we amuse her or 
she amuses us. But despite the limi- 
tations of our tastes and of their char- 
acters the fact remains that the 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 169 

friendly companionship of pet beasts 
is one of the refreshments of life which 
makes for humor and sanity. 

The whole question of play comes 
in here. Some people of the Grad- 
grind type have tended to excuse 
play rather grudgingly as a means for 
taking needful exercise. That is not 
quite a Christian attitude. The " tak- 
ing of exercise " is generally a very 
poor business in itself; while both 
manual labor and hearty play in mod- 
eration not only guard the welfare of 
the body, but help us to make our 
souls. The question of work has al- 
ready been briefly treated. It is worth 
while to repeat, however, that every 
one ought to know how to do man- 
ual labor because a vast amount of 
such labor has to be done and we 



I70 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

ought to stand ready to perform our 
share ; many people earn their bread 
by it and we ought to be wiUing to 
stand beside them; it is generally 
wholesome for the body; and it brings 
a sort of honest exhilaration to be able 
thus to help ourselves in fundamental 
ways. There is a sense of independ- 
ence which comes from a field which 
one has planted, or a walk, a bridge, a 
fence, or a house which one's own 
hands have helped to build, that 
scarce anything else can give. It is 
to be hoped that if universal military 
service continues in the United States, 
the term of it will be so divided as not 
only to familiarize recruits with the 
manual of arms and other things need- 
ful in defensive warfare, but to pro- 
vide for labor upon productive works 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 171 

where under democratic conditions 
men shall render permanent service to 
their country. A sort of patriotism 
might be thus fostered quite as keen 
as and even more wholesome than that 
which comes from bearing arms in be- 
half of the commonwealth. It is of the 
essence of success here, however, that 
each man should do his share. 

The same thing holds true of play. 
To gain the best results we should play 
ourselves and not merely watch others 
play. That tendency in athletics which 
leads a multitude to watch a few is un- 
wholesome. Many people travel long 
distances and spend large sums of 
money to see athletic contests who 
perhaps persuade themselves that they 
are playing or at least that they are 
encouraging genuine play. In point 



1/2 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

of fact they are not only doing neither 
of these things, but they are really en- 
couraging a fashion that is robbing 
play of its best features and degrading 
it into a more or less shady profession. 
The "sporting" page of the newspa- 
per, with its story of the "buying" or 
" selling " of baseball players or its de- 
scription of a game told in a special 
"patter," stands for a distinctly un- 
wholesome trend in our life. So does 
the craze for college or school yells 
carefully practiced beforehand, not for 
the purpose of cheering a good play 
by one's own team or its opponent, 
but for a sort of self-assertion in shout- 
ing down one's rivals, heartening one's 
partisans by mere noise and numbers, 
and occasionally perhaps " rattling " a 
player on the other side. 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 173 

The college yell is a rather childish 
survival of savagery and a sign of the 
ease with which even well-bred people 
yield themselves to the mob spirit. 
It will pass as we become better civi- 
lized. Meanwhile it is worth notice as 
a symbol of a whole group of things 
which keep play out of its true place 
in our lives. Many a man fancies that 
he has been playing when in fact he 
has only been shouting his lungs out 
on the side-lines and working himself 
and his fellows into a sort of frenzy of 
partisanship. True play is that exercise 
of mind or body or both which is a 
pleasure for its own sake, which gives 
the player happy companionship in 
the person of partner or opponent, and 
which provides enough detachment 
from the burdens and problems of life 



174 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

SO that these things fall into right pro- 
portion and perspective. Every one 
knows what it is to be sadly bothered 
by some question which, on being laid 
aside for a while, solves itself, very 
much as the painting, that, seen too 
near at hand, seems a mere blur of 
color, takes on meaning and beauty 
both when we gain the proper distance. 
Play often helps us to this standpoint. 
It tends to sweeten our seriousness 
with humor and to lend deftness to our 
touch; so that we distinguish better be- 
tween the big and the little, the things 
that really matter and the things to be 
let go. Steadfastness and zeal are first- 
rate qualities of the Christian without 
which he can hope to accomplish noth- 
ing; but, granting their possession, his 
accomplishment will find its worth 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 175 

greatly increased if it be marked by- 
grace, good cheer, and a happy humor. 
But like most good things play is 
subject to abuse, and this has some- 
times become so notorious as to put all 
amusements under suspicion among 
serious people. Two or three general 
rules ought to guard the play of every 
Christian. It should, in the first place, 
be so clean and wholesome that all who 
serve it in any way shall gain rather 
than lose by the service. "To the pure 
all things are pure," quotes the play- 
goer to excuse his presence at some 
doubtful or frankly indecent spectacle. 
Suppose we grant that the theater-goer 
may himself escape unscathed from 
such contact with uncleanness. How 
about the performer — generally a 
w^oman, of course — whose daily task 



176 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

it becomes to purvey indecency to the 
public? If she do it unwillingly and 
for the sake of bread, the sacrifice is 
one that no right-minded man would 
consent to have made in his behalf, and 
least of all for his pleasure. If, on the 
other hand, her nature has already been 
coarsened by her occupation until she 
does not shrink from indecency or 
until she possibly finds a sort of pleas- 
urable excitement in it, then tragedy 
is already developed, and the discern- 
ing man who has a spark of honor left 
will refuse to deepen it. The theater 
needs a very drastic purging here ; and 
on this side of the line which separates 
the decent from the vile there is a large 
territory now ruled by stupidity and 
coarseness which ought to be rescued 
by playwrights and audiences alike. 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 177 

As a concrete illustration might be 
cited a recent play, generally clever 
and quite innocent of indecency, in 
which an elderly woman of birth and 
breeding was made at certain intervals 
to rip out an oath. There was no occa- 
sion for it except to raise a silly laugh 
from people who think it funny to 
hear a woman swear. The whole thing 
was really stupid, showing either that 
the playwright was unable to depict 
a brusque and masterful character ex- 
cept by such childish means, or else 
that he was so contemptuous of his 
audience as to fancy that they could 
be amused by sheer coarseness. The 
latter was probably the reason, and it 
was justified by the result, since ap- 
parently decent and possibly intelli- 
gent people dissolved in laughter at 



178 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

nothing beyond the fact that an oath 
had been dragged upon the stage by- 
main force. So great a nuisance has 
this form of stupidity become that the 
illustrated papers have satirized it, and 
" Life " not long since depicted a highly 
amused audience of well-dressed peo- 
ple with the legend " Some one on the 
stage has just said 'D — n.'" 

All so-called " sport '' that disre- 
gards suffering, or that possibly finds a 
cruel excitement in watching it, ought 
to be ruled out of a Christian's play. 
The early Church rendered a true 
service to the world by its protest 
against the shows of the arena where 
men and beasts fought each other for 
the pleasure of the people. The bait- 
ing of bulls or bears by savage dogs, 
while the crowd looked on to see the 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 179 

bull teased to madness and an oc- 
casional dog tossed or gored, was a 
modified form of the same debasing 
play. Macaulay said that the Puri- 
tans hated these things, not because 
they hurt the beast, but because they 
pleased the people. His irony had a 
half-truth hidden in it. The Puritan, 
like the Christian of the early Church, 
did a highly needed service in pro- 
testing against cruelty and immorality 
in the amusements of his day; but 
when he fell so in love with reform as 
to become grudging toward all play 
and suspicious of the play spirit^ then 
he exerted a merely deadening influ- 
ence and invited reaction. By degrees 
we become more humane as the char- 
acter of true play is better understood. 
The cock-fight and dog-fight of yes- 



i8o COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

terday are to-day under the ban ; and 
the clay pigeon has pretty generally 
replaced its living prototype in shoot- 
ing-matches. Boxing holds its ground 
and may perhaps be admitted to have 
a little — a very little — to say for it- 
self; but when followed as a profes- 
sion and exploited for the sake of 
money it must also be fairly admitted 
to be bad. 

It is here that some reader who likes 
to test to the uttermost the consist- 
ency of his guide will raise the ques- 
tion of shooting and fishing. Do not 
these bring death to innocent crea- 
tures ? Does not the hunter or fisher- 
man delight to inflict it? Are not 
hunting and fishing, therefore, instru- 
ments of cruelty, and should not they 
too be foregone by right-minded lovers 



BROOKS IN THE WAY i8i 

of play? I do not think so. The line 
which separates right from wrong 
seems to run across these forms of 
play rather than to one side of them. 
The true sportsman never inflicts pain 
thoughtlessly or takes life recklessly. 
He does inflict death, but death is an 
inevitable event to the bird or the fish. 
It comes as suddenly and painlessly 
at his hands as it can generally come 
and the creature thus captured is put 
to good use. All wholesale killing or 
such attempts to kill as are likely to 
involve mere wounding and loss are 
wrong and are frowned upon by the 
true master of rod or gun. Some whose 
taste is against such things will think 
this but lame and partial reasoning; 
but those who love field or sea will 
understand and heed. 



1 82 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

The question of taste will do much 
to determine the refreshment which we 
obtain from books. Despite the fact 
that the worth of a reading habit has 
been sometimes exaggerated, every- 
body ought to cultivate the friendship 
of books, and many have found them 
to be among the best gifts of God. 
These are the windows through which 
we look at wider scenes when our own 
landscape seems narrow or dark. They 
tell us the story of other days and 
their contribution to the making of 
our world; they hearten us sometimes 
by introducing us to lives so unlike 
our own as to make us self-forgetful, 
and again by showing us our own cir- 
cumstances under so new a light that 
the commonplace ^ grows beautiful. 
Moreover, they vastly widen the cir- 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 183 

cle of our friends. Sometimes these 
are the authors whose companionship 
comforts us; and at others they are 
characters in poetry or fiction who 
seem as real as though they had walked 
the earth. It is said that when Alfred 
Tennyson's name was proposed for 
the Laureateship, Sir Robert Peel, then 
Prime Minister, had scarcely heard 
of him. Procuring a volume of his 
poems, he read as far as "Ulysses" 
and at once made the appointment. 
Many struggling men since then have 
felt the influence of that one poem to 
be like the sound of a trumpet to them. 
Ulysses, growing old, to be sure, yet 
confident of the worth of life's adven- 
ture and resolute to push it farther, 
has proved himself to be quite as real 
and heartening an element in life as 



1 8+ COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

though he were an historical figure. 
The thoughts and dreams of inspired 
writers are thus among the most vital 
of realities. So the young man who 
has learned the secret of Wordsworth's 
love of common things has resources 
that age cannot wither or custom stale. 
He will always have a secret place of 
peace wherein to take refuge when 
the world grows too loud. 

Not peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower. 
There in white languors to decline and cease; 

But peace whose names are also rapture, power. 
Clear sight y and love ; for these are parts of 
peace. ' 

Of course, the best things here must 
be sought or at least accepted. The 
reader of nothing but the current pop- 
ular novel or snippets in the maga- 

» William Watson, WordsivortF s Grange. 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 185 

zines will find little of either nourish- 
ment or refreshment ; but if he be wise 
enough to discriminate and choose 
the best, then the incalculable wealth 
of Shakespeare, the broad humanity 
of Scott, the intense vitality of Dick- 
ens, and the indescribable quality that 
brings into Thackeray's page mirth, 
irony, and tears, are all his if he will 
claim them. 

The Christian who makes much of 
the privileges of his faith has a private 
key to this garden of delights ; for a 
knowledge of the Bible not only edu- 
cates the literary taste, but opens the 
doors of many treasuries that must re- 
main tight closed without it. Religion 
has been in every age a chief inspirer 
of literature. Great literature is packed 
with reference and allusion to the 



1 86 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY ' 

things of faith ; and it is to the man 
of faith that she yields her wealth 
most lavishly. 

The reader who will review this 
chapter will discover that it has dealt 
primarily with the friendly element 
in our association with the world in 
which we live, the beasts that inhabit 
it, our chance playmates, and the men 
whose printed words reach us even 
though we never behold their faces. 
The refreshment of life is thus bound 
up with friendship and reaches its high- 
est development in that relation be- 
tween us and our associates. One of 
the memorable sayings of Jesus is, 
'' Henceforth I call you not servants 
. . . but I have called you friends." This 
was His triumph, that He had taken 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 187 

these plain men as He found them in 
the world, taught them as Disciples, 
trained them as Apostles, but most 
particularly won their friendly devo- 
tion. His method when used by His 
followers wins men still; and the man 
who has friends finds brooks of re- 
freshment along every path of life. 
Friends are not to be won and cer- 
tainly not to be kept by a mere con- 
trivance; nor is the man who has 
rewarding friendships necessarily a 
"popular'' man. Indeed, in school, 
college, or general society, nothing is 
much more certain to defeat its own 
ends than a desire to be "popular." 
College classes in their early days to- 
gether almost always see a few men 
who rise quickly into prominence be- 
cause of some gifts of appearance or 



1 88 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

address joined to a desire to be known. 
They rarely retain their leadership. 
The men whose influence and mem- 
ory abide are likely to be men of too 
solid qualities for such a sudden rise. 
They are men of parts and very likely 
of ambitions; but these are subordi- 
nated to some common service. It is 
true that the ideals of this service are 
often boyish and immature ; but such 
as they are they clearly determine a 
multitude of choices. These men come 
to have friends because they show 
themselves friendly. 

Such a man may or may not reach 
a place of leadership in his large or 
small world. His happiness depends 
very little upon that; but a good 
measure of happiness will be assured 
to him if by serviceable and friendly 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 189 

bearing he win friends and then by 
honest adherence to high standards he 
retain both their affection and respect. 
But friends have their rights. The 
joy and satisfaction of friendship are 
likely to fly out of the window if jeal- 
ousy be admitted at one's door. My 
friend not only has a right to his hon- 
est opinion, which may differ from 
mine ; he has a right to the best con- 
struction of his motives when he 
chooses a line of action which I would 
not choose or which I cannot under- 
stand. He has equal rights with me 
to other friendships than that which 
unites us, and if he can see lovable 
qualities in people w^hom I shrink 
from, so much the better for him and 
conceivably for me if he reveal this 
better side to my appreciation. Of 



I90 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

course, common sense — that is, the 
practical working of God's Spirit in 
man — must enter into all this rela- 
tion. In estimating the worth of a 
friend we are not to confound a mere 
varnish of manner or a mental clever- 
ness with the qualities of heart and 
character which wear and grow better 
with use; nor are we to deny that 
some companionships are likely to 
prove dangerous even though they 
bear the outward signs of friendship. 
These things must be brought to the 
great tests of the Way — Purity, Un- 
selfishness, Honor. But if these are 
met, then the society of other people 
is likely to prove one of the abiding 
satisfactions of life; for we are grega- 
rious creatures meant to live, laugh, 
and weep, to love and serve together. 



BROOKS IN THE WAY 191 

Thus this little book has set forth 
the Christian Religion as a matter 
which no intelligent person can afford 
to neglect. It has depicted the Chris- 
tian as the person who is willing to 
hear and to consider the Word of 
Jesus Christ ; and who then proceeds 
so far as he honestly can to embody 
the doctrine and spread the knowl- 
edge of it. The Problems of his ex- 
perience were next considered, first 
as related to questions of faith and 
then as to questions of conduct. Then 
came a discussion of the enlargement 
of experience which shall make a man 
not only good, but efficient and well 
endowed ; and finally, considerable 
space was given to the means of re- 
freshment which enhance the Chris- 
tian's Way. 



192 COMPANIONS OF THE WAY 

That Way has so often been pic- 
tured as narrow that men have some- 
times thought its experience to be 
meager. This is not true. "Strait" 
its gate is in the sense of having defi- 
nite and specific meaning. Narrow 
the Way sometimes appears as every 
road of conduct proves to be which 
calls for self-control, resolution, and 
progress toward a definite and worthy 
end. But the life involved is neither 
cabined nor confined. There is room 
in it for all sorts of worthy experience 
and for all sorts and conditions of men. 
The Christian is expected to be, not 
merely a man of the first century put- 
ting his feet in the footprints of Jesus 
of Nazareth, but a man of his own 
century carrying into its activities and 
problems the Holy Spirit of God. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



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